At this point who in the world could stop Trump over doing something totally illegal? Like lets say using bunker buster bombs to destroy DEM cities? Or is USA communially FUCKED?
He is commander in chief of the US military.
The US military stresses disobeying illegal orders.
So the simple answer is the US military chain of command respecting their oath to the constitution over loyalty to Trump.
Just like the Marines refused to be deployed to California
Remind me again how many Marines opened fire on civilians.
And they basically did nothing but stand around. I think they arrested one guy? And that one guy was most likely being an asshole and pushed his luck past the brink. Also, there was only 700 of them. You couldn't control my little hick town with 700 soldiers. LOL, they'd be hilariously outgunned by the rednecks and retired military. In any case, now they're gone.
Yes, it was an egregiously corrupt use of the military, but that's not even close to using weapons of war on an American city.
The chain of command goes from the secretary of defense all the way down to the most junior enlisted personnel.
You seem to assume I meant the joint chiefs or some small hand full of senior commanders.
Generals don't pull the trigger, and as someone else pointed out, the logistics involved with bombing a city includes hundreds of service members.
Not sure where you get off calling me clueless as my initial response exactly answers the original question.
If not for honorable service members respecting their oaths and the UCMJ, there is literally nothing stopping Trump from bombing Chicago or LA.
You need hundreds of people all working together to drop a bomb on a US city. Commanders, officers, maintenance workers, ordinance loaders, pilots, navigators, even base MPs.
You really think you can get all of these people to agree to drop a bomb on a civilian US city, just on a Trump whim?
Come now.
You mean like all of the air force brass, logistics commanders, pilots, all the way down to the MPs, who have been consistent in collaborating following illegal orders to fly black bagged and chained legal US residents that were refused due process to foreign concentration camps?
The USA is fucked. Your systems have horribly failed to stop him and the rest of the world has no interest in getting into a fight with the strongest country in the world over how many Holocausts it plans to do in its territory (or, realistically, Canadian territory).
Look at it this way, Trump is legally capable of firing the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank (Jerome Powell), and he hates that man's fucking guts. Practically speaking though, Trump can't sack the guy without sending shockwaves through the financial world and tanking our economy. At the moment, Trump is trying to trump up (heh) a reason to fire Powell because he can't do it by fiat.
If his hands are tied over this thing he can legally do, you think he'd be able to bomb American cities? Think even the stoutest MAGA would applaud the bombing of New Orleans? They're turning on him over the pedo thing, destroying an American city is two orders of magnitude worse.
They're turning on him over the pedo thing
Sure thing bud, it's definitely not performatory thing at all. They're going to rise up anytime with their gums and milifia anytime noe.
Could stop him or would stop him? SCOTUS has granted him blanket immunity for anything done as an "official act", without bothering to specify exactly what an official act is. This has opened up a Pandora's Box, needless to say. They're literally expanding the power of the President, not limiting it.
Congress, since it is fully GOP-dominated, will neither impeach him nor attempt to override any veto should they pass laws to curtail his activities. Not that they would, of course.
The military has a duty to follow the Constitution and is supposed to disregard any orders to the contrary. But whether the military will act according to Trump or the Constitution is an open question. Remember, Trump has removed a number of senior officers whose loyalty to him was in question. And there are a lot of right-wing extremist types in the lower ranks of the military.
In short, we're probably FUCKED.
i know it's not the point of the thread, but FYI:
bunker busters can't destroy cities. not practically, anyways.
they're hyper-specialized munitions that get dropped from high up in order to pick up a lot of gravitational momentum to then penetrate deep underground and through multiple layers of concrete.
they're long, extremely resilient, stupidly heavy rods with relatively small warheads.
they're the "rods from god"s little cousins, essentially.
although there's some speculation that some kinds of modern concrete might be strong enough to withstand even multiple direct hits...
the kind of munitions that could cause enough destruction to level a city are M.O.A.B.s, for conventional arms, or straight-up nuclear bombs.
...or you could use a LOT of smaller bombs, like the russians in ukraine, or the israelis in gaza.
but bunker busters, while having an objectively badass name, are not actually that scary a weapon, unless you're sitting in an actual bunker; they're more of a precision weapon!
Keep in mind that he already ordered the military forces to siege US cities, and they gone through the process of doing it while refusing to escalate into actual violence.
Trump doesn't seem to have that much control. I'm not sure he would be arrested if he ordered a strike, but I don't think it would happen either.
On paper there's plenty that could. The Supreme Court could have stepped in to stop a lot of this. Executive orders only stand in places where a full fledged law from congress doesn't cover the issue. The military is theoretically as obligated to disobey an unlawful order as they are to obey a lawful one and states are theoretically pretty insulated from federal interference except in a few explicit areas.
But, we don't live on paper and none of those protections exist unless there are people out there who are ready, willing, and able, to act on them. What happens if the Supreme Court somehow manages to rule against the administration and they just flagrantly disregard the order? What happens if Trump orders the military to start attacking US citizens openly or starts an illegal war without congressional approval? What happens if Trump runs for president again in 2028? Or just says he's president for life and we're not doing elections anymore?
The answer is nothing, unless people stand up against him. And... so far... we haven't seen much of that. Not from people in government at any rate. We've seen a bit from normal folks on the ground in places like LA, but our government's been working to neuter the power of popular protest since the civil rights protests, perhaps even earlier. So reasonable people can disagree on the efficacy of that.
I really don't want to echo the doomer line I've seen written here a lot, but yeah, we're probably fucked. Like maybe if something was done like... a decade ago? Two? Maybe we wouldn't be in this situation. But... as things stand? I don't even know if the damage from the first Trump presidency can ever truly be repaired and more damage is being done on a weekly, almost a daily basis. Personally? I think it's only a matter of time before this man breaks the global economy irreparably. In a way that simply can't be swept under the rug again. Domestically? Who the fuck knows at this point? I have to resist the urge to laugh out loud whenever people ask where I see myself in five years because at this point I've got no idea what the next two weeks are gonna hold.
So... yeah. Fun times in the ol US of A.
the scotus being 6-3 super majority conservative isnt going to do anything against trump.
Yeah, I know. Just leaving room for miracles I guess.
How familiar are you with the concept of civil war?
If he would go to bomb an American city a civil war will start. Then they authority to stop him or not will rely on the winner of the war.
I'm not sure what you mean. He can do almost any single act he wants. But depending on what it is, the response could possibly come back to bite him in the ass.
Like his fucking around with Epstein or his claims of ending various wars. He fucked around and is in the process of finding out. But he's rich, so he won't get locked up, because that's how the justice system is designed.
In reality, most of the world doesn't respect him, including most of the U.S. And like any scam artist, he caves when he has no other choice, and then lies about it. So, is the U.S. totally fucked? We'll find out, won't we. There's no guarantees in life. And it also depends how white and how male you are, too.
USA fucked
I'm no expert but also long as the USA doesn't bomb another country isn’t it's kind of the responsibility of the USA itself and their people?
No, the USA is not fucked.
Everything happening now has happened before, and worse, and the USA has endured. It may take some time, but the US will be fine.
The difference is now there are countries who have their shit together and will happily let the US become irrelevant.
We'll ultimately be rescued by an invading foreign army: Canada, Mexico or China.
Rescued by china?
they'll sell off what still remains in aliexpress.
Maybe I'm crazy, but, I believe the Chain of Command will not allow Trump to order military violence on U.S. soil.
So did the other side. What's your point?
you act as if the gop isnt going to do it, every president before biden allowed it.
You're either trolling or you're too far gone from reality to get back.
The US President is not subject to laws, when acting in his official capacity, unless at least 1/2 of the House and 2/3 of the Senate vote to impeach him. So winning the election is a license to do illegal things, if you have enough political support.
He's been doing illegal tgings since before he was president, he doesn't give a shit and neither anyone else
So the answer is very clear, when laws/agreements/contracts/etc. no longer have an effect at all, usually authority becomes solely defined by force and force alone.
I fear it's only a matter of time before a civil war breaks out.