Or possibly any other red state in this country. {Highlight to read} I wouldn’t put it past any of the inbred, ignorant red necks that live in those states and support Trump to do this………
In the town of Newbern, AL, apparently there has not been an election in six decades! Although roughly two thirds of the town residents are black, the white residents have been maintaining control of the town government through a “hand-me-down” form of government since at least the 1960’s. It seems that each white mayor has been appointing his successor, who has then been appointing the town council members, so that the positions have been handed down from one person to another without an election for over 60 years! In that time, only one black person has served within the town government.
Apparently, a black man (Patrick Braxton), ran for mayor unopposed in 2020 winning the position. He appointed a new council made up of both white and black residents, although all the white residents refused to serve. He and his town council were locked out of all the town buildings and given no access to the town financial accounts for over three years. The previous all-white town council held a secret meeting during which they held a secret election and appointed themselves as the town council once again.
The black residents of the town sued, and in an agreement enforced by the federal government, another election was held this week in which Braxton won over a white candidate 66 votes to 26 votes, officially making him the mayor over four years after he was first elected.
I find it hard to believe that this kind of shit has been going on for six decades. This is the type of world which our MAGA citizens want to go back to - and exactly why Trump’s strongest support group is white males without a college education. Because the only world they can compete in is the kind of world which existed in Newbern, AL.
Here is the link to the news article:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/alabama-towns-fir...
Comments
USA Very Soon
I am convinced that Trump will attempt to stop the up-coming midterm elections by some means or other. If he doesn't succeed in stopping them he will try to skew them in his favour by gerrymander or by force. I am equally convinced that (if he is still in power by then) he will try to find a means to avoid or void the 2028 elections and hang on for a third term.
He and his crew of incompetent and immoral rascals will plumb unimaginable depths to convert the USA into a klepto-dictatorship.
I know BC is supposed to be non-political but your current situation is perilous. This is the only way I can have even a scrap of influence.
Let's Hope...
... that their incompetence comes to the forefront. Unless it's the kind of incompetence that harms the rest of us instead of themselves.
-- Daphne Xu
I wasn't surprised by the report
Only that it had gone for so long. Surely those involved would be guilty of something preventing democratic processes and thus against the constitution or something, and hopefully prosecutable. Although I'm not sure the US has ever been a democracy, it just becomes more obvious under Trump, because he doesn't know what subtlety is.
Angharad
Technically……….
The United States has never been a democracy. It is a democratic republic.
However, the whole concept of a republic only holds true when the people’s elected representatives actually do the job they were elected to do, when they actually represent the people who have empowered them, rather than doing whatever is necessary to stay in office, whether their actions fulfill the will of their constituents or not.
It seems as though it has become the sole pursuit of most politicians to remain in office. NO MATTER WHAT IT TAKES TO DO SO.
How many Republicans have privately denigrated Donald Trump as the unqualified idiot that he is, and then in public fall in line behind whatever he wants? All because they are afraid they will lose their cushy public offices if they stand up to him and do the right thing?
The best thing that could happen to our Congress would be the imposition of term limits. If a representative or senator knows that they cannot be re-elected, then they will hopefully be more interested in doing what is right rather than getting re-elected. It appears that the only honest politician may very well be a lame duck politician.
Also, we need to impose an age limit on politicians. Allowing representatives who are totally out of touch with society as it exists today is a recipe for stagnation. When we allow people to prevent our society from progressing, we are asking for it to fall. Nothing stands still; you either move forward, or you will fail. When we allow old, white men to determine what our society will be, then we will get exactly what happened in Alabama.
Last, but certainly not least, allowing a minority of the population to exercise power over the majority simply because they live in a separate state is not an acceptable situation. Especially when that minority does so by allowing their chosen leader to violate the primary law of the land, the Constitution. When Congress abdicates their responsibilities in order to stay in office, and when a vocal and prejudiced minority is allowed to push their own agenda unopposed, then we are all on a road to hell.
D. Eden
“Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.”
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
imposition of term limits.
It has been tried before and must be tried again. The trouble is the very people who have to vote to limit the terms are the people whose terms are to be limited. It's a kind of a catch 22.
Now if we could convince the house and the senate to commit political suicide we then we need to get the president to sign it into law. If he won't then those same houses need to override the veto with a two-thirds majority.
Is there a way to do a federal referendum? That's the only way I can see to get term limits for congress imposed.
As to lame duck positions doing what's right... it can work the other way as well. Trump is a lame duck president and isn't doing what's right; he is doing what ever his bigoted heart feels like. Because he can't be re-elected (legally) he is free to tick off the whole population.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
Term Limits
The Presidential term limits were imposed through the Constitution. That may be necessary for Congressional term limits as well. The Constitution provides for proposing amendments in a convention called for that purpose.
-- Daphne Xu
What Constitution?
The madman currently in power has trampled over the constitution so many times in the last 6 months that is almost worthless.
SCOTUS is going to consider a challenge to the 4th Amendment before the end of the year.
Trump has openly said that he has people working on how he can continue as POTUS beyond 2028.
Watch out USA, your nation is at risk.
Samantha
What Constitution Indeed
My comment was long-term. It assumed that the Constitution would survive its current crisis.
-- Daphne Xu
Based on his current approval rating…….
Unless the democrats are incapable of coming up with a legitimate candidate for President in 2028, I don’t see him getting elected even if Republicans do manage to find a way around the 22nd Ammendment. Which I honestly don’t see happening, no matter what Trump says. I think too many Republicans will be glad to see him go away.
Of course, I never expected him to get elected in 2016 or 2024, so I have already been wrong twice! I guess you simply can’t over overestimate the stupidity of the average American voter. If it wasn’t so painful watching the travesty Trump has made of this country, and the joke he has made of his office and our government, it would almost be pleasant watching the idiots who voted for him crying about how they didn’t vote for all the things he is doing now.
Yes, you did vote for it. Notwithstanding the fact that Project 2025 spelled it all out in black and white, Trump repeatedly told everyone exactly what he was going to do. He even said, and I quote, “I’d be a dictator on day one.” He vowed to go after all of his political opponents, take vengeance on anyone who opposed him, to deport millions of people, to enact tariffs and cut social programs and foreign aide, etc, etc, etc.
Now that he is doing everything he told us he was going to do, people who voted for him are surprised???
Yeah, you can’t fix stupid.
D. Eden
“Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.”
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
too many Republicans will be glad to see him go
You can count me in. I've been a Republican for the last forty years. Mostly because I'm an advocate of small government and personal responsibility. I want the government to do only what individuals can't do for themselves. Maintain the infrastructure but stay out of my personal life, especially the bedroom and my wardrobe.
I think Trump got elected in 2016 and 2024 more as a result of who he was running against rather than being a good candidate himself. In 2016 I considered him a loose cannon. He was running against a person of questionable ethics. So people took a chance. I think that many people were surprised that he even wanted a second term. I know I was. When he lost, I thought we'd seen the back of him.
Then Biden got flaky toward the end and when asked Harris gave the impression that she'd just be a female version of flaky Biden. I think in both cases, it was a matter of voters voting against his opponent rather than for him.
That being said; should he find a way to get on the ballot again, it will be Trump being voted against.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
Bypassing the two term rule
Simple really.
1) be appointed Speaker of the House by a GQP majority. Apparently, you don't need to be an elected representative to become Speaker.
2) Elected Potus resigns making the VP POTUS. Speaker becomes VP
3) New POTUS resigns making new VP POTUS.
This was discussed in a few places earlier in the year.
Be very scared those of you in the USA.
One commentator said today...
Even if he is 6ft under, his press spokesman will say that he's never been fitter. That says it all. No acceptance of reality.
Samantha
The problem with your scenario……..
Is that according to the Constitution, in order to serve as Vice President, a person must be legally capable of becoming President. As the Constitution forbids a person who has already served two terms as President from becoming President, this would make Trump legally ineligible for any position which falls into the line of succession. Until or unless the 12th or 22nd Amendments are changed, Trump cannot become either Vice President or President.
There are three basic requirements to serve as President or Vice President:
1) A person must be a natural born citizen of the United States.
2) A person must be at least 35 years old.
3) A person must have lived at least 14 consecutive years within the United States.
However, these requirements were later modified by both the 12th and the 22nd Ammendments as follows:
Two later amendments changed these rules about who can be President and Vice President:
The Twelfth Amendment (1804) says that to be Vice President, a person must meet all of the requirements for President.
The Twenty-second Amendment (1951) says a President cannot be elected more than twice.
Since in order to serve as Vice President, a person must be capable of legally serving as President under the Constitution, and since the 22nd Amendment precludes Trump from doing so, he cannot serve as Vice President or succeed to the Presidency.
What is somewhat ironic, is that it was the Republicans who pushed the 22nd Ammendment through into law in response to FDR’s long tenure as President:
"Implicit in the Republicans' view was the belief that the twenty-second amendment would strengthen and safeguard democracy from what they believed to be its greatest danger: the aggrandizement, consolidation, and even usurpation of political power by the executive branch of government." For them, "the twenty-second amendment was not an undemocratic restraint upon the popular will, but a democratic restraint upon any future, dangerously ambitious demagogue."
Isn’t that ironic in view of their current ass-kissing support of Donald Trump? What else is Trump, except a “dangerously ambitious demagogue”?
D. Eden
“Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.”
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Trump has said more than once
That he has people (aka Stephen Miller and the Heritage Foundation) working on how he can run again.
There is a theory promoted by Trumps acolytes that the 22nd amendment means 2 consecutive terms which if [cough][cough] rubber stamped by SCOTUS would mean that Trump can legally run again in 2028.
Samantha
That would be reading into it a lot that just isn't there
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxxii
That's pretty plain language
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
The Speaker of the House...
...doesn't become vice president when the position is vacant. That'd actually be considered a demotion, since traditionally the vice president's status as president of the Senate doesn't convey the perks -- committee assignments and such -- that the House speaker does. The majority leader does that; the vice president, after all, may not even be a member of the Senate majority party.
Under the 25th Amendment, when the vice presidency is vacant, the president nominates a successor, who must be confirmed by "a majority vote of both houses of Congress." As long as the vice presidency is vacant, the House speaker would remain first in the line of succession to the presidency, but not as vice president.
The amendment was ratified in 1967. Before that, the vice presidency simply remained vacant for the rest of the presidential term.
Since then, two vice presidents have been chosen under those conditions. Neither of them was Speaker of the House. Gerald Ford, minority leader in the House (the Democrats were the majority there) was nominated by Richard Nixon when Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973 and was ratified by each house in December of that year. After Ford became president when Nixon resigned in 1974, Ford chose Nelson Rockefeller, the former governor of New York state, as his vice president; he'd never been a member of the House or Senate, let alone a leader there, though he was probably the most prominent Republican nationally. That meant that neither the president nor the vice president had ever faced a national election.
Anyway, making Trump House speaker would only elevate him if his successor as president died or resigned without anyone having been ratified as the new vice president. That's presumably the scenario your source was suggesting. The 22nd amendment -- the one from 1947 putting a term limit on the presidency -- reads "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice." (Italics mine.) That, incidentally, voids the suggestion that non-consecutive terms make the amendment inapplicable. But the point here is that, at least on this basis, succeeding to a third term without being elected president or vice president wouldn't violate that restriction. Whether or not other restraints apply -- many, apparently including a Supreme Court decision on a related issue in 1995, think they do -- is another question.
Eric