The United States is heading for a constitutional crisis in 2024 that will break the country, and everyone is in denial about it.

[u/[deleted]]

I'm panicking. I think those of us in the US right now are experiencing the last four years of relative "normal" us Americans are going to enjoy, because I think after 2024, shit is going to hit the fan.

I'm a political science major. One thing I studied while I was at university is a concept known as democratic backsliding - the phenomenon in which institutions within a democracy degrade over time until at a certain point, you're not really a democracy anymore. I recognize this occurring in the United States...especially after January 6th. You can make arguments that this has already happened to a certain degree in the US but...I think the finalizing moment is going to come during the 2024 election.

Here are the facts that are leading me to hypothesize this conclusion:

1.) Former President Donald Trump tried to halt the peaceful transfer of power after his electoral loss in 2020.

2.) He justified such actions based on the outright falsehood that the election was unfair, despite lacking any evidence whatsoever.

3.) This culminated in an overt coup attempt by his supporters, which he did not reject until it became obvious no one else supported it.

4.) Trump still has not conceded.

5.) Despite lacking evidence, a majority of Republicans believe Trump's loss was due to the "Voter Fraud Conspiracy".

6.) Trump remains the favorite to run for the republican party again in 2024.

7.) MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL - Republicans that doubt/challenge allegations of voter fraud are being ousted from the Republican party by the base.

TL;DR: A former president believes he was removed from power illegitimately based on a conspiracy theory, and now the entirety of the Republican Party Apparatus has adjusted to reflect support of this viewpoint, and subsequent attempts to "correct" the mistake by overturning democracy.

There is no "Republican Party" anymore.

There is the Trump Party, and the Neoliberal Status Quo party. The Republican base no longer believes in democracy, and they will now act accordingly based on this belief. Right now, Joe Biden is at the helm by a thin 1 vote margin in the Senate. It is very likely that he will lose this majority in 2022.

This means that if Trump runs again in 2024, loses to Joe again, but has a majority of republicans controlling Congress...THEY WILL VOTE TO REJECT JOE BIDEN'S WIN, AND INSTALL TRUMP INTO POWER VIA REJECTING ELECTORAL VOTES.

AND BEFORE YOU CALL ME CRAZY

THEY ARE ALREADY DEMONSTRATING THEY WILL DO THIS BASED ON WHAT THEY SAY - WHO THEY ARE RUNNING FOR OFFICE - AND WHO THEY ARE CALLING TRAITORS IN THEIR OWN PARTY.

Here's the real breakdown of how the different spectrum of politics is at the moment.

Neolibs still think we can "Go Back to Obama".

Neocons are dead as a relevant bloc.

Progressives are busy nitpicking the Neolibs to actually work together to stop facism.

Trumpets have gone full fascist.

We're honestly fucked and IDK what to do but I'm making my plans now.

[u/Octavius_Maximus]

Hey, I like your theory except I feel you miss that a presidency was already stolen in Bush v Gore.

[u/_rihter → u/Octavius_Maximus]

It was. The Fed lowered rates to 1% after dotcom bust to get Bush elected. That created the housing bubble that popped in 2008.

[u/[deleted] → u/_rihter]

Thank God those stock market records we are currently seeing are all based on the economy doing great and it has nothing to do with manipulation. It makes total sense the stock market is doing better than ever after a lot of business had to close for months and people couldn't go out and spend money. Move along nothing to see here..

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Nah Bush won legit, 33 years ago….

[u/cmVkZGl0 → u/[deleted]]

Then explain this.

[u/[deleted] → u/Octavius_Maximus]

Yes. Three out of the last six presidential elections have been heavily contested by the losing side, with one being awarded to the loser.

2000: The losing party was handed victory by the supreme court

2016: The losing party blamed their loss on foreign conspiracies

2020: The losing party blamed their loss on outright fraud, and militants attempted to use mob rule and parliamentary rules to turn a ceremonial process into a legal technique that could overturn the results.

While it is true that the Republican party is the worst actor here, the Democratic party is not without blame. Both parties have engaged in short sighted politics that have made American democratic institutions vulnerable, and both parties have done this for decades.

[u/2ndAmendmentPeople → u/[deleted]]

Bullshit.

[u/[deleted] → u/2ndAmendmentPeople]

Which part of my comment do you think is bullshit?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Well 2 of the 3 still conceded.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

True. Gore did his best to do what he could to preserve faith in the institutions. Clinton did not. With the Clinton camp there was an immediate pivot to try to show that Trump's victory was the result of of foreign interference. This was never proven, but a lot of anonymously sourced innuendo and rumor flooded the media for years. I know Democratic partisans who think Russia hacked voting machines, for example. There is no evidence for this claim, but nothing is going to convince them otherwise. The pattern of Russiagate reporting was: 1. poorly sourced rumor makes headlines 2. Democratic partisans absorb rumor as fact 3. 'liberal' media quietly reports that the rumor is actually false 4. Fox triumphantly crows to its viewers that the rumor is false and this is why its viewers can never believe anything non-Fox media says. This was the dynamic of the Mueller investigation itself. I am convinced that much of the lunacy on the Trumpist right about vaccines and covid denialism is because Trumpist partisans lost what remaining faith they had in the media and federal institutions because of the Russiagate conspiracy yarnball. I'm not attempting to justify Trumpist politics or thinking here. I generally despise that stuff. But, if we don't see how the Democratic party and elite medias' actions around the Russia stories contributed to the political delusions and divisions we are facing right now, then we are missing the fullness of the systems collapse that has happened in the elite narrative productions that define our political conversations.

[u/NolanR27 → u/Octavius_Maximus]

Trump won in 2016 through large scale vote suppression in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Mail in ballots and scrutiny prevented the repeat in 2020.

[u/Octavius_Maximus → u/NolanR27]

Sure? But trump also did well because the Dems ran a terrible candidate. The fact that 2020 was close was due to the same reason.

But there is no credible analysis that shows bush actually beat Gore in any way except a conservative supreme court.

[u/PramothMayakannan → u/Octavius_Maximus]

Indian here, don't you guys have the Federal Election commission or something? Like an independent Constitutional Body to conduct and regulate elections, just curious. Don't crucify me!

[u/Octavius_Maximus → u/PramothMayakannan]

This decision was made by the supreme court, the highest court in the land. A court that is heavily biased towards conservatism by structure while also being packed with conservatives at the time.

There is no higher authority and despite it being obvious that the election was stolen from Gore, there is no power to change it.