It took me a while to realize some number of people actually expected mass protest to make him step down or somehow cause Democrats to "take the government back."
Replies
It must be pleasant to have that kind of outlook on the world
sep 1, 2025, 3:32 pm • 20 0 • view
I mean they don't ACT like it feels "pleasant" but who the hell knows.
sep 1, 2025, 3:33 pm • 10 0 • view
But speaking for myself I *was* pleasantly surprised at the sheer size of public protests! (I went to one and was like 'wow yeah this sure isn't nothing!') But I have also been VERY consistent all along going back years about how I think that stuff hardly ever does any good. Why would it?
sep 1, 2025, 3:35 pm • 10 0 • view
I was at the famous 2017 Women's March! The BIG one! One of the largest gatherings ever at that time. Being me, I hated every second of it, but it WAS awe-inspiring to see. Didn't move the needle in the slightest.
sep 1, 2025, 3:36 pm • 10 0 • view
I think it galvanized people not to just suffer through all normalized and to actually stay mad. We were out for a birthday that day at a bar with TVs and they had it on every channel. That was unexpected.
sep 1, 2025, 3:39 pm • 12 1 • view
It also formed connections between people who organized for other things later! Big protests like that rarely make anything happen *instantly,* but everything's groundwork for the next thing
sep 2, 2025, 12:36 am • 7 1 • view
And yeah, knowing you're not alone is a big fucking deal
sep 2, 2025, 12:36 am • 4 1 • view
Heh I like being alone tho. You gotta picture me as Larry David at every protest, basically.
sep 2, 2025, 12:47 am • 5 0 • view
sep 2, 2025, 12:48 am • 3 0 • view
Too many people have got it in their heads that those kinds of protests are ends themselves rather than means to an end. And the fact that there were so few subsequent protests afterwards to keep momentum and pressure meant all the energy to forge a movement dissipated into bitterness instead
sep 1, 2025, 9:39 pm • 2 0 • view
It's gotta be horrible when it never happens, though, no? Over and over. It would feel like everyone's a complicit betrayer.
sep 1, 2025, 3:34 pm • 14 0 • view
Yeah, that’s why they’re so paranoid and unhinged.
sep 1, 2025, 10:23 pm • 2 0 • view
A shocking number of people I've encountered online do not grasp that being in the minority in government means you cant do much.
sep 1, 2025, 8:45 pm • 18 1 • view
That must be an upsetting existence for them
sep 1, 2025, 8:50 pm • 6 0 • view
It's sad to see you saying it like that 🥲 we did this in the Philippines twice in the past 41 years Nonviolent too
sep 1, 2025, 9:15 pm • 2 1 • view
Well like I don't know the ins and outs of Duterte But Trump was unfortunately legally and democratically elected. Removing him early would be a coup
sep 1, 2025, 9:19 pm • 11 0 • view
And I know it may not look like it from the outside but MANY people here take our (imperfect!) history of liberal democracy and rule of law VERY SERIOUSLY. We do not talk about coups casually as One Weird Trick.
sep 1, 2025, 9:24 pm • 22 2 • view
There's a school of thought, even her on BlueSky among the Serious Folks, that Trump was NOT eligible for office and thus IS illegitimate and in fact the constitutional order itself is currently in a kind of limbo. There's an argument!
sep 1, 2025, 9:28 pm • 10 0 • view
I can't go that far because even if there's some question the whole "election" thing kinda settles the argument. For now. I don't what else we can say because otherwise you're talking "coup" again, heh.
sep 1, 2025, 9:28 pm • 9 0 • view
Yeah but SCOTUS didn't rule that way. You can't actually just say "My name's Biff and, for free, I declare this monster is inadmissable." I wish you could!
sep 1, 2025, 10:05 pm • 4 0 • view
There's a point at which SCOTUS oversteps its constitutional authority, though, and at that point it wouldn't really matter what they ruled. Like if Harris had clearly won and SCOTUS ruled "no, Trump is president" we would have to disregard that as a constitutional matter.
sep 1, 2025, 10:15 pm • 4 0 • view
I don't think it matters at this point re: his ineligibility. It -might- matter in the future if we pack the courts and people make arguments about e.g. whether pardons he issues are valid.
sep 1, 2025, 10:15 pm • 3 0 • view
I always felt that it was clear that he'd MORALLY disqualified himself by his actions (however half-assed) to resist accepting the 2000 election. That it was all beyond the pale and the polity should not forgive that. But by definition, it did.
sep 1, 2025, 10:24 pm • 7 0 • view
Really I felt that he was disqualified in THAT sense from the very start, simply for being a known scoundrel and person of low character. But again, the electorate disagreed.
sep 1, 2025, 10:24 pm • 7 0 • view
You're not supposed to say it, but I've never been convinced in a legal sense that he "engaged in insurrection." It's vague enough. He said some shit. It was arguably incitement. I just don't know if it meets that bar. Shouldn't matter! No one should vote for him! But here we are.
sep 1, 2025, 10:24 pm • 8 1 • view
Oh I agree, from where I sit as an amateur. The hardliners argue that the Court had no say, I guess, and that the relevant text of the 14th Amendment is just self-executing. He's literally not president because he can't be. (I'm so not a scholar but that doesn't FEEL right.)
sep 1, 2025, 10:08 pm • 4 0 • view
Fucking copium I also want the world to be good It fucking isn't and people need to deal
sep 1, 2025, 10:11 pm • 2 0 • view
OK but what we did aren't coups, they were nonviolent revolutions. This is voice of the people calling for ouster. We were inspired by Gandhi & MLK and ourselves partly inspired Eastern Europe's color revolutions
sep 1, 2025, 9:30 pm • 1 1 • view
Okay sure, yeah; I guess "coup" would be the wrong word for that. But just replace that with "revolutions" in my statements, I guess. Revolutions do happen and sometimes they end up for the best. But for most people they're not and can't be a GOAL.
sep 1, 2025, 9:31 pm • 5 0 • view
We'd absolutely have gotten to a moment like that as a country, if, say, it's 2029 and Trump were to try to stay in charge somehow. (As many people have insisted he'll do all along!) Then we'd be justified in whatever unpleasant things we'd have to do as a country.
sep 1, 2025, 9:33 pm • 6 0 • view
Overthrowing the government is a coup whether or not anyone gets shot.
sep 1, 2025, 9:35 pm • 4 0 • view
Yeah I guess the distinction is just “popular movement” vs “elite machinations” but in practice I suppose the lines always blur. (Any coup worth its salt claims to have the backing of the people!)
sep 1, 2025, 9:38 pm • 3 0 • view
I don't want to argue point by point with every one who doesn't get it but the Wikipedia for 1986 clearly says we had a nonviolent revolution, who rescued the plotters of a failed military coup en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_...
sep 1, 2025, 9:43 pm • 3 0 • view
And I mean that's good! (I remember! I was alive then.) I'm not stressed about the terminology either way. It worked out for you! We'll just say "the character of the government changed by extra-constitutional means". That does happen! But we very much want to AVOID if if we can.
sep 1, 2025, 9:47 pm • 3 0 • view
I just don't believe that would really happen, never have. The guy's a dumbass old coward.
sep 1, 2025, 9:33 pm • 4 0 • view
Do your laws allow for recall elections? Ours unfortunately don't.
sep 1, 2025, 9:47 pm • 2 0 • view
Ha yeah. We left that part out. (Our framers put in a theoretically much SIMPLER way to remove the executive! It turns out to be useless in practice!)
sep 1, 2025, 9:48 pm • 3 0 • view
"Well clearly, Congress won't be friends with the president, so--" 😔
sep 1, 2025, 9:53 pm • 1 0 • view
I think we used to have it but not in the current constitution formed after 1986. We still debate about changing that one
sep 1, 2025, 9:51 pm • 1 0 • view
Impeaching him for impeachable crimes is not a coup (at least not in the bad way), and yes I realize they don't have the votes etc. etc.
sep 1, 2025, 11:41 pm • 0 0 • view
Impeachment would be great. We don't have the votes and we never will.
sep 1, 2025, 11:49 pm • 0 0 • view
Well, maybe not *never*. But it would take a level of bad I don't think anyone wants to see to get there lol
sep 2, 2025, 3:57 pm • 3 0 • view
Just saying that wouldn't be a COUP exactly
sep 1, 2025, 11:50 pm • 3 0 • view
100%! They should have impeached and removed him three seconds after the first path.
sep 1, 2025, 11:56 pm • 2 0 • view
We did it in 1986 to our current president's dad and 2001 to Erap Estrada. Bongbong, AKA Ferdinand Marcos Jr, still fears People Power being used vs him to this day that it genuinely informs his policies
sep 1, 2025, 9:22 pm • 2 0 • view
We are in no way a perfect country but yes, peaceful ouster of two of our presidents in less than 30 years
sep 1, 2025, 9:24 pm • 4 0 • view
The Philippines is roughly the size of Arizona. It's hard to recognize how many people are protesting when we're so spread out. Trump can just ignore us on the West Coast, esp if the media doesn't cover it. I went to a protest today, for ex. I'm not sure people outside the US realize how huge it is!
sep 1, 2025, 10:00 pm • 9 0 • view
Oh of course and that's no knock on them. People IN the US have no idea how huge it is either. It's really really clear from the way many lifelong Americans talk about our politics (or about things like mass protest!) that they really don't grasp the scale of what they're saying.
sep 1, 2025, 10:02 pm • 6 0 • view
You see it in peoples' worries about "rigging elections" or about "locking down cities" with the National Guard or with ICE or what-have-you. That sounds scary but just in no way grapples with the sheer size of such a task compared to the resources available.
sep 1, 2025, 10:04 pm • 7 1 • view
It's frustrating to me when people say "why aren't Americans protesting?" (We are!) Or "why aren't you doing what South Korea did?" They have no idea how much harder it is to convene everyone in one place. SF ➡️ Boston distance is similar to Boston➡️ London.
sep 1, 2025, 10:14 pm • 2 0 • view
I've seen the protests, definitely more people protesting in the US now than the ones who held People Power It's not about the number of people. Does America have the willpower for revolution? And then, do they have the will to make it nonviolent?
sep 1, 2025, 10:30 pm • 1 0 • view
Thanks for saying this! It can’t be said enough! Nonviolent democratic transitions are the most effective and successful, despite being a seemingly less dramatic slow burn. A lot of people don’t realize this, and *want* violence, which results in autocracy & ethnic cleansing. It’s so frustrating!
sep 1, 2025, 9:31 pm • 2 0 • view
I wouldn't oversell what we did as that effective but it's clear we did something our country may not fully appreciate was so special And I honestly don't know what to tell you guys to make it happen there, I'm sorry. There just don't seem to be enough people who believe you can do it
sep 1, 2025, 9:34 pm • 0 0 • view