What seems to be the Problem?

It was quite frustrating to me listening to Hutch and Destiny arguing around what should be done or how deep the US are in the shitter already. Here is my take, feel free to hate in comments. TLDR at the end.

The messages of the MAGA authoritarian movement are:

• Populism pretending to defend the common folks against supposed elites
• Polarization and identification of out groups as enemies, primarily Democrats and Immigrants
• Lies: Democrats want to take away your guns, open borders, teach critical race theory to your kids. The great replacement, 2020 election hoax, Russia Russia Russia and many more.

The characteristics of the MAGA authoritarian movement are:

• Acting unlawful: Tariffs, Epstein Documents Censorship, Shielding Federal LEO's crimes, Firing federal employees for political reasons, Freezing federal funds (climate, USAID, education) and many more.
• Breaking norms, Prosecutions against political opponents (Eric Swalwell, Letitia James, Adam Schiff, James Comey, Alvin Bragg, Jack Smith, Hillary Clinton, Jerome Powell, Tim Walz) as well as Persons and Organizations in Media (AP, VOA, Radio Free Europe) and Law (Covington & Burling, Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block & WilmerHale)
• Being Corrupt: 90 Deals in 90 Days which is leveraging Tariffs to favor Trump or allies personally. Crypto Grifts accepting foreign and anonymous payments. Selling Pardons, Cabinet and other executive branch positions, ambassadorships or dropped investigations. Inauguration donations and other Favors such as the Melania Documentary Deal. The total amount of corruption for Trumps family and friends lies in the $2-3B range.

What should the political opposition do to bring the US back from the brink of cleptocratic authoritarianism? All comes down to upholding the Rule of Law and bringing back political norms.

The Rule of Law is upheld by prosecuting crimes rigorously and as uncompromising as possible. This does not require anyone to "make up" crimes. There are plenty of real ones. Norms are a more complicated matter and require the opposition to break with the norms as well in some cases, for example gerrymandering. In other cases impeachments should be used as those can effectively punish norm breaking behavior, e.g. in case of Pam Bondi and her political prosecutions.

However, in order to bring the public along for the necessary prosecutions and impeachments they need to understand the scope of the Republican Desaster.

1. Electoral Messaging: Inspire Fear

For decades, Democratic candidates chose to message their electoral campaigns with visions of a better future, appeals to shared values and promises of policy progress. These being hard to achieve, especially with an opposition that has increasingly become disinterested in governing, eroded a lot of trust. Meanwhile, the Republican Party has powered their campaigns with fears based mostly in lies and has had huge successes. Democrats need to reciprocate the politics of fears, but based in actual danger, grounded in real and present threats to democratic institutions, individual freedoms, and economic security. Tell the truth about what is actually at stake.

Peaceful Transitions of power

The January 6 attack on the Capitol was not a fluke. It was an attempt to prevent the certification of a free and fair election. It was a Trump-Circle coordinated effort to substitute electoral slates of key states in a fake elector scheme, pressuring the senators and vice president with a protest right in front of the congress that (probably accidentally) escalated into a violent storm on the capitol.

Threats to individual freedoms

Undermining the 1. Amendment by intimidating persons and organisations in media and law. Undermining the 2. Amendment (“You can’t have guns. You can’t walk in with guns,”). Subverting the rights to your own body (abortion rights, trans rights). I could make many more examples. The public needs to understand that Republicans have no principles aside from abusing power for personal gain.

Economic Security

The imposition of sweeping tariffs, including blanket tariffs on imports from allied nations, has demonstrably increased consumer prices, disrupted supply chains, and provoked retaliatory measures against American agricultural and manufacturing exports. A broad majority of economists have warned that tariffs are an outdated and bad economic policy that functions as a consumption tax borne disproportionately by lower- and middle-income households.
The large-scale dismantling of federal regulatory and administrative capacity through mass firings, defunding of agencies, and withdrawal from regulatory frameworks threatens the infrastructure that protects food safety, drug approval, workplace safety, environmental standards, and consumer financial protections.
Furthermore, pressure on the Federal Reserve's independence, attacks on the credibility of economic data produced by federal statistical agencies, and the politicization of federal contracting create the conditions for economic instability and undermine investor and business confidence.
All of these policies will eat away at Americans 401k and other retirement funds based on the value of stock market listed businesses. Trumps policies decrease both buying power as well as savings. It makes Americans poorer.

2. Governing against Lawlessness: Prosecute and Impeach

Once in power, democrats should do what needs to be done.

The filibuster must go

Democrats are at a structural disadvantage in the Senate. If they want to be politically effective, they will need to govern with simple majorities, like the rest of the democratic world. There is nothing wrong with using a 50+ majority to enact law. Mistakes can and need to happen in order to learn and get to a better place. The filibuster is an artificial and outdated practice that unnecessarily limits the power of the most important branch of the government.

The presidential pardon power should be scrutinized

Donald Trump already used it to enrich himself. He will probably use it even more to protect his allies to get away with crimes. The constitution should be changed to grant that power to congress instead. It is very unlikely that this can be achieved unless a significant bipartisan majority can be found.

Prosecute as many crimes as possible

Should by the end of his term Donald Trump have preemptively pardoned people, those pardons can be used as evidence in impeachment proceedings.

All impeachment worthy behaviors should be investigated

This could mean that almost the entire Trump cabinet and then some as well as some prominent congress people and justices may be impeached. This should not be considered an overreach, nor should one think that impeaching people for crimes is not enough. The pardon is what it is and even if people aren't being held criminally liable, removing them from the political landscape actually is good enough to safeguard political institutions and processes.
Impeachments should also include justices up to the highest level that have made obviously wrong decisions. The emphasis lies on obviously as the legislative needs not babysit the judiciary, however, it does need to oversight it and make sure that the laws that it writes are upheld in good faith. The recent 6-3 tariff decision comes to mind in which three justices for some reason came to the conclusion that the president actually has the right to tariff any country for any reason? This is an obviously bad faith interpretation of the IEEPA law.

Feel free to let me know what you think.

TLDR: Crimes need to be prosecuted to uphold the Rule of law. Overreaches, crimes and norm breaks should be investigated for impeachment to bring back sane governing. To bring the public along, Democrats should base their campaigns on fear: Specifically of losing important democratic institutions, individual freedoms and economic security.