Well obviously… otherwise a politician paid by putin could remove the ability for the president to fire the nuclear weapons. You can’t have randos deciding what the leader can do.
The question is, will everyone surrounding a president allow the president to commit mass cullings or nuke California. And the answer is clearly not, outside of delusional fantasy scenarios.
Trump wasn’t even allowed to build a wall, and you think his VP would have let him commit genocide?
> otherwise a politician paid by putin could remove the ability for the president to fire the nuclear weapons. You can’t have randos deciding what the leader can do.
No, apparently it’s much easier and safer to just pay off the president directly.
> You can’t have randos deciding what the leader can do.
These aren't randos; they're federal prosecutors that are hired by the sitting President of the United States.
Let's say that even if there is a decision that Trump's acts aren't related to his official duties and he somehow gets punished for those charges (I wouldn't hold my breath). How does this not give Biden and future Presidents a way to seriously abuse their power with a hope that they're not held accountable for it? Before it was just a hypothetical. Now we've crossed the Rubicon and established that there are scenarios in which a President can have unlimited power.
It’s also likely that the project 2025 people will have almost every federal employee declared a political appointee which would give any sitting president the power to fire any prosecutor prosecuting him. This was one of the OMB changes Trump made at the end of his last presidency.
There are some already drawing up list of those employees for targeting during a potential second Trump term, using a grant from the Heritage Foundation, IIRC.
And that's a problem. Are we a nation of laws, or are we not? Justice delayed until someone's out of office is justice denied until someone's out of office.
That’s the goal though. Eliminate everyone competent and then leave the gutted institutions for the next series of Presidents to deal with. Or in the case of the National Weather Service gut it, replace everyone with climate change deniers, then outsource all the weather and meteorology to someone like The Weather Channel.
This absolutely opens the door to that. It gives a scenario where a sympathetic judge can immediately toss a case against a President for abusing power.
That's a tortuous use of the word unlimited. The president has very limited power that is spelled out by the constitution and proscribed by Congress. Using that limited power in the way it is permitted is not "unlimitedly using limited power."
I mean, this isn't outside the norm. Most government employees and officials either elected, appointed, or hired generally don't have personal liability for discretionary acts of their office under the principle of qualified immunity.
It's really weird to watch all that from the other side of the pond.
In my country for example, all politicians have immunity but our parliament can revoke it for anyone using a majority ruling... ( having more than two political parties helps )
Your looking at it from today's perspective, but these kinds of rules need to be looked at from the perspective of worst case scenario - don't limit it to the current candidates, think about what a future president in... Say 30yrs is gonna do.
The weihmaher republik was a pretty good democracy back in the day. It just gave the leader certain rights, and suddenly Hitler became the dictator, creating Nazi Germany.
Everyone needs a limit to their power, otherwise they'll be able to essentially flip the board and declare themselves emperor.
Please don't project what I said here onto trump, Biden or Obama. None of them are on that level. It's just possible that a future president is that morally bankrupt, especially if social issues continue to accrue/inequality keeps growing unchecked.
> Please don't project what I said here onto trump, Biden or Obama
Technically the US is in this predicament because one of them wanted his vice president to not name a successor, after mentioning several times during his presidency that he wanted a third term.
Just because he's a bad wannabe dictator, it doesn't mean he's not a wannabe dictator. He even said so himself, "just for one day".
> The weihmaher republik was a pretty good democracy back in the day.
No it wasn't. It had armed gangs, both right and left-wing, fighting in the streets, completely failed monetary policy and sky-high level of corruption. The republic just started to kind of getting back to normal for a few years at the end of 1920s, and then was wrecked with Great Depression.
> It had armed gangs, both right and left-wing, fighting in the streets
See: 2020 in the US.
> completely failed monetary policy
See printing off a lot of money to deal with an emergency because the US hasn't had a meaningful conversation about revenue since 1993 when George HW Bush went back on "read my lips"
> sky-high level of corruption
You have people on this court accepting vacations and gifts from people who are wishing to push a certain political viewpoint on the court. They just ruled this was okay, too, by neutering a federal anti-bribery statute. Money is considered protected political speech.
There are a lot of parallels between Weimar Germany and the current state of the USA. More than anyone should feel comfortable with.
> It just gave the leader certain rights, and suddenly Hitler became the dictator, creating Nazi Germany
Not it didn’t give him those rights. The parliament (including moderate parties) explicitly granted him the power to so whatever he wanted after the nazis were already in power.
This is a disaster for rule of law.