The problem with the US political system is that every four years they elect a president whose power is almost unlimited. Now the US Supreme Court has granted presidents immunity from prosecution for criminal acts committed while in office. This not only gives Donald Trump a free pass for his past crimes, but sets a dangerous precedent for all future presidents. Before Trump, no one had even argued that presidents are absolutely immune from criminal liability after they leave office. Indeed, every president – including Trump himself – assumed the opposite. In his impeachment trial, Trump’s lawyers argued against impeachment by conceding that an acquittal would not be the end of potential accountability, because he could be criminally prosecuted after he left office. That concession was in line with all prior presidents’ acceptance that the United States is a place where all citizens, including the president, are equal under the law1 (Seriously? Who are they kidding?).
If any president could behave like Trump, why is it that previous presidents have not attempted to do so? It is because previous presidents have had at least some concern for the wellbeing of the nation. Trump is an ignorant, lazy, malignant narcissist who is completely out of touch with reality. How does the US stop a vegetable like Trump being elected again? This assumes that people in the US get to vote again, as Trump and some of his fascist sidekicks are suggesting that, in contravention of the constitution, Trump may serve another term as president2.
Another problem the US has is the archaic electoral college system which can change the outcome of the popular vote. For instance, in the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote over Trump, 51.1% to 48.9% However when that made its way through the electoral college, Trump won that by 304 (57.25%) to 227 (42.75%)3 votes. Hardly democratic.
Yet another problem the US has is that they do not have a preferential voting system. All you do is tick a box for a candidate and that is it. This can lead to a splitting of the vote as has happened previously, most recently by people like the consumer advocate Ralph Nader. In the 2000 presidential election, Nader won 97,488 votes and Al Gore lost Florida to George W. Bush by 537 votes. It is likely that a large proportion of the votes for Nader were siphoned off the Democratic vote, causing Gore to lose4. If there was a preferential voting system, this would not have happened. George W. Bush was one of the worst presidents in living memory and perhaps the thickest, until Trump arrived on the scene.
Nader was unapologetic and maintained that there should not be a “two party duopoly”4. However, while there is no preferential voting, that is what the US is stuck with. The Republican Party was founded in 1854, and initially stood against the extension of slavery in the nation’s new territories, and ultimately for the abolition of slavery5. Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, and just as an example of how far the Republicans have sunk, compare one of his speeches with that of Trump6; but I digress. In the 20th and 21st centuries the Republican Party came to be associated with rampant capitalism, lower taxes for the wealthy and conservative social policies5.
The Democratic Party can trace its roots back to the 1790s when it was called the Democratic-Republican Party. At that time, it was opposed by the Federalist Party, but the latter faded from view by 1820, allowing James Monroe to run for president unopposed. Subsequently the party split into two, with Andrew Jackson’s faction formally becoming the Democratic Party in the 1840s7.
A further perversion of democracy is the fact that the electoral boundaries are set by the states’ politicians and this has led to bizarre shapes to electorates (or districts as they are called in the US) purely so the party in power is more likely to elect members of their party to the House of Representatives. Despite being a dodgy practice, it is completely legal in the US according to the Supreme Court8. This is not permitted in Australia where the independent Australian Electoral Commission sets all electorate boundaries for federal elections. That is something we have to be very thankful for.
While both major parties in the US have been around since well before the end of the 19th century, in Australia only one party that was in existence at the beginning of the 20th century is still going, and that party, the Labor Party, is in serious decline. The other major party, the Liberal Party, in aligning itself with the idiocy of Trump, seems to be in even more rapid decline9. So, we have something for which to thank Trump.
Now Trump has ignored court rulings, even one from the Supreme Court, and there is nobody enforcing those rulings as the organisations charged with enforcing those rulings have been stacked with loyalists10. As a consequence, Trump simply walks away unhindered. Some have suggested that ignoring these court rulings is a test for Trump so he can see what he can get away with. If he does, the US has lost the rule of law and Trump can do whatever he likes.
So, it seems that the US has descended into fascism and there is no way to return to any semblance of democracy in any normal way. One of the avenues that remains is that the Republicans in Congress realise what they have done and reverse course, exerting what authority they have over Trump. I suspect this is unlikely, as many of them know that if there are midterm elections toward the end of 2026, they will be decimated, and getting rid of Trump is one way to ensure the midterms happen, so many of the venal bastards will be quite happy for Trump to abolish the midterms. The Republicans seem to have already started stacking the vote by disenfranchising people, especially women with the passage of the SAVE Act11.
It has been suggested also that Trump may invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807. This stems from an executive order he signed when he assumed office on January 20th. In that order he suggested that such invocation could be introduced within 90 days, and that he could deploy the army within the US by April 20th12. I have suggested elsewhere, that this may be the beginning of using the army to suspend civil liberties, including the right to protest. If this is so, it is only a matter of time before assault rifles are used against protesters.
The US is in a very precarious position at present, and to a large extent, its future depends on what the army does if deployed within the boundaries of the country. If it shoots protesters, the US is finished. If it doesn’t, the US may be salvageable. As the title of this piece suggests, the US elects a president every four years and the quality of those men and their adherence to convention has prevented them from becoming dictators. Now they do have a dictator.
Sources
- https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/supreme-court-grants-trump-future-presidents-a-blank-check-to-break-the-law
- https://apnews.com/article/trump-third-term-constitution-22nd-amendment-efba31be02ee96b0ef68b17fe89b7578
- https://blotreport.com/2017/03/23/archaic-us-electoral-college/
- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-nader-effect/
- https://www.britannica.com/topic/Republican-Party
- https://blotreport.com/2017/01/08/lincoln-vs-trump/
- https://www.britannica.com/topic/Democratic-Party
- https://thefulcrum.us/electoral-reforms/worst-gerrymandered-districts
- https://theconversation.com/labor-gains-52-48-lead-in-newspoll-and-redbridge-as-poll-trend-to-labor-continues-253739
- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/23/judges-trump-court-rulings
- https://www.factcheck.org/2025/02/will-save-act-prevent-married-women-from-registering-to-vote/
- https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/global-trends/what-is-martial-law-and-what-happens-if-trump-imposes-a-similar-order-in-us-check-details/articleshow/120309169.cms
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/hey-john-roberts-chief-justice-alerted-as-white-house-liaison-insults-his-intelligence/ar-AA1DePGa
Quote: A key White House official is insulting Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts, Jr., and the nation’s top jurist should know, a legal expert said on Saturday. It all started with the Supreme Court over the weekend temporarily halted the Trump administration’s deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members under an 18th-century law. That led one MAGA influencer to write on X, “As usual, Alito and Thomas are the only two Justices you can count on to uphold the integrity of our republic. Replacing them is going to be one of the most important issues of our time.
Paul Ingrassia, President Trump’s White House Liaison for Department of Homeland Security, followed that up with his own reply:
“Generations of lawyers and judges, on both sides of the aisle, have been infected with a parasitical ideology that denies reason and common sense, causing irreparable damage to our judicial system. This is why a putatively ‘conservative’ Supreme Court so often fails to uphold the most basic principles of constitutional governance,” he wrote. The Trump admin official concluded with, “The judges in law courts today, including the majority in the nation’s Highest Court, telegraph with these decisions that they have no understanding of law and its proper function and role. President Trump is the first leader who has actually meaningfully attempted to reverse this destructive trajectory, and done so with the gravitas of executive power that will be sure to have a lasting impact for years to come.”
Ingrassia’s public comment pretty much sums up the fascist extremism present in Trump’s sycophantic administration. And remember this sort of fascism isn’t occurring covertly, it’s being regularly spruiked with the intention of making unlawful acts appear normal and entirely acceptable. SCOTUS, courtesy of Roberts and the conservative cabal which controls it, has itself to blame after their ruling 6-3 on Presidential immunity which has clearly emboldened Trump and his enablers – enablers who also have no fear of prosecution due to the ludicrous and dangerous Presidential pardon power.
Jon,
Americans are going to have to do something pretty damned quick or they are buggered. If Trump invokes the Insurrection Act or declares martial law, then it is quite likely that protesters will die in numbers that will make Kent State look like a picnic. I don’t think they can wait until the midterms. I was talking to an American mate this morning and he seems to think the same.
The problem is that even non-violent action could potentially give Trump an excuse to invoke war time powers. Hopefully smart people are working on strategies (beyond the hundreds of legal challenges already in place) to pressure more moderate Rep feds to come to their senses.
Jon,
I hope so, because they don’t have long.
Trump’s attacks on judges and the judicial system are already being mimiced by his extremist supporters.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/enough-is-enough-how-one-wisconsin-judge-is-fighting-back-in-support-of-arrested-colleague/ar-AA1DIHFP
As we all (shpuld) know, the attacks on and threats to courts, judges, legal firms, electoral systems, universities, businesses, media outets, individuals with whom he’s had past disputes or who don’t kiss the arses of his appointed thugs, the cozying up to other fascist maniacs (Putin, Jong Un, Orban, Netanyahu etc) are lifted from the playbook of fascist dictators throughout history.
As Hartmann so correctly says in his blog, the responsibility for what is happening lies not just with Trump and his enablers but both directly and indirectly with the perverted Roberts’ SCOTUS:
Roberts Owns It All: From Citizens United to Trump’s Coup
Every stolen vote, every purged roll, every billionaire’s whisper in the ear of power — this is the legacy of John Roberts’ court…
Thom Hartmann
Apr 22
John Roberts owns this nightmare; without him and his corrupt Republican co-conspirators against democracy on the Supreme Court we never would have had a reality star neofascist ascend to the highest office in the land.
And it’s getting worse daily.
On the morning of April 12, 2025, the North Carolina Supreme Court tried to quietly nullify the votes of over 5,000 Americans, many of them active-duty military and overseas citizens.
Four Republican justices attempted to throw out these ballots after the election, claiming they lacked photo ID, even though the state’s own voting portal didn’t allow IDs to be uploaded. The goal? Overturn the narrow 734-vote victory of Democrat Allison Riggs over Republican Jefferson Griffin.
A federal court has temporarily blocked certification, but make no mistake: this is what stolen elections look like in John Roberts’ post-Citizens United, post-Shelby County America.
Justice John Paul Stevens saw it coming. In his Citizens United dissent, he wrote:
“The Court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation.”
He warned that allowing unlimited and often anonymous money to flood our politics would “short circuit the democratic process” and “shatter” public faith in government.
Stevens was right. But Justice Stevens’ dire warnings didn’t stop five Republican appointees — three openly taking gifts from billionaires — from striking down hundreds of state and federal laws that had limited the political power of corporations and the morbidly rich since 1907. With Citizens United, Roberts’ Court handed them the keys to our democracy.
And now the reckoning is here.
The richest man in the world, Elon Musk — with a social media empire compromised by Russian influence and a checkbook that bleeds billions — bankrolled Trump’s return to power in 2024. Trump now uses that power to crush any Republican who steps out of line.
And make no mistake: this marriage of oligarchy and authoritarianism rests squarely on the shoulders of John Roberts.
It was Roberts who gutted the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County, claiming “our country has changed” and racism no longer exists as a problem. The result? Four million mostly Black and brown voters were purged or disqualified in 2024, handing the election to Donald Trump. Now, as you read this, at least ten million more are in the crosshairs for 2026. This is the fruit of Roberts’ five Republicans’ decision.
Then came the big con: declaring Trump immune from prosecution for his “official acts.”
This grotesque doctrine now shields him as he dodges court orders, defames rape survivor E. Jean Carroll, and refuses to pay her what a jury awarded. It even allows Pam Bondi’s Trump-hacked DOJ to argue against his having to pay Carroll — because raping and defaming women is now apparently part of a president’s job.
Roberts watched as Trump bulldozed the Constitution and responded with such tepid finger-wagging that Trump’s lawyers mocked the Court openly. This isn’t “restoring faith in the judiciary.” This is enabling a dictatorship.
And John Roberts owns it all:
— He owns Lisa Murkowski’s whispered fear: “We are all afraid… retaliation is real.”
— He owns the purges of civil servants who tried to do their jobs while Trump loyalists like “Big Balls” and Elon Musk fired anyone not in lockstep.
— He owns the dismantling of our national security infrastructure; gutting the FBI, neutering the NSA, and kneecapping agencies that track hostile foreign actors.
— He owns the future Trump emergency declaration (particularly if there’s a terrorist attack) that will install him as dictator-for-life.
— He owns the death of American credibility on the world stage and the economic depression his tariffs and chaos will provoke.
— He owns Trump’s lies that Kilmar Garcia has MS13 tattoos on his hand, a gaslighting characteristic of dictators like Putin, Pinochet, and MBS. As Rep. Maxwell Frost said of Trump’s willingness to lie to imprison people: “Today it’s Mr. Garcia, tomorrow it can be any one of us.”
— He owns the increasing deaths of women in states with near-total abortion bans.
— He owns the stolen votes of millions who might have stopped this rolling catastrophe but couldn’t, because John Roberts’ Court helped rig the system against them.
— He owns Doge, Musk, and “Big Balls” destroying America’s diplomatic and scientific primacy in the world.
And now, Roberts faces the destruction of the very branch he leads. If the judiciary can no longer check power, what’s left?
We’ve seen this movie before, just not in America (with the exception of the Confederacy, as I lay out in The Hidden History of American Oligarchy), but throughout modern world history.
Within months of taking power, Hitler neutralized judicial oversight via the Reichstag Fire Decree. Mussolini packed Italy’s courts with fascist loyalists. Viktor Orbán rewrote Hungary’s constitution to push out hundreds of judges. Putin’s courts take instructions directly from the Kremlin via what Russians call “telephone law.”
And here? J.D. Vance says Trump can ignore the Supreme Court entirely. And he is. That’s where we are.
The time for pretending is over: We now live in an early-stage dictatorship. The Court has ordered Trump to bring those men back from El Salvador and he is telling it to go screw itself.
Early Saturday morning (at 1 am), seven justices briefly found their voices, blocking Trump’s illegal deportation regime, over the fascists objections of Thomas and Alito.
We’ll soon see if that was a real stand, or just kabuki theater to cover their robes with the scent of legitimacy. Buses were stopped, but the people are still in El Salvador. Trump is still playing dictator, refusing to recognize the authority of the Court.
If Roberts still refuses to check Trump’s power, and Republicans in Congress continue to cower before him, it falls to us.
Not with violence but with truth, organizing, voting, and yes, a peaceful revolution that requires all of us to be in the streets every week, to speak out in every venue possible, and to unrelentingly demand courage of our elected representatives or replace the ones still cowering in fear.
John,
Yep, the US is in deep shit, and if they do not do something soon, there will be martial law and protestors dead by the hundreds, and there will be no midterm elections.