Thread by @JuliusGoat

If you think the answer is “no” you’ll need to ask yourself what on earth would stop him.

https://twitter.com/TByrne75/status/1360847698677571586

Only if dead or debilitated. And honestly given how detached from reality Republicans are, even then.

https://twitter.com/basmithart/status/1360969910147497984

I don't think dead people can run for and become president, but a lot of things I didn't think could happen have happened simply because if somebody approaches it with the attitude "try and stop it from happening" there exists no political will to stop it.

So who knows?

NYT 2024:

Partisan Bickering Intensifies Over Trump's Candidacy
Republicans nominate 'idea of Trump' despite Democratic claims he died early this year

I really think we need to shift our thinking from "that won't happen because that is against the rules/law/etc" to "literally anything can happen unless we are willing to fight to stop it, because we're dealing with fascists who don't think any rule or law applies to them"

Put another way: It doesn't matter how good you are at chess if your opponent has decided that you're actually in a swordfight.

"He'll never get enough votes to win."

OK. Let's grant that this is for sure true—which is not at all self-evident to me, but fine.

Guys ... we're dealing with Republicans. They don't *intend* to get enough votes to win. They've chosen a different way.

The next election Republicans will cheat as much as they can, and if that's enough to "win" the election, they'll use the result to take power.

But what they *intend* is to merely get enough votes to create a pretext for seizing power violently.

It's already happened once.

I'm sort of simultaneously impressed by and concerned for people who still believe that our norms and institutions protect us from the intentions of malicious people who have no respect for either.

We're collectively being a lot more confident than is wise, imo.

What I'm learning from the responses to this thread is that there are about as many people now who believe that Donald Trump could never ever possibly become president as there were in oh say early 2016, and with approximately the same unshakeable confidence.

Cool.

I mean maybe he won't make it, and maybe he won't even run, or maybe he'll be too sick or even dead, but I really don't know where this certainty comes from that all these things are givens.