The point wasn’t that Trump passed an enabling act of his own, the point is the fact that Trump was elected democratically doesn’t make his actions democratic.
Which I conceded... however, the logical question to ask from there is, "has he done such a thing?" And the answer is no.
But you do have other arguments, surrounding "undemocratic behavior":
But I think I've given you too much already... so allow me to rectify that: It's subtle, but we are not a complete democracy; we are a democratic republic. The distinction is that we are built so that, in times when the masses are wrong, the representatives and other elected officials do what is wise.
Is this good in practice? No, not really. But it is superior to pure democracy. Both really aren't that great. Universal suffrage has not helped; if you're going to aggress on others with a vote, it would've been wiser to ensure said voters are the best of the best.
I digress. Anyway, this is relevant because you need to keep in mind that we voted him in, knowing we wouldn't like or agree with everything he did. The point of this is not to justify, but rather to note that our democratic-republic is not going to die because of Trump.
Examples of anti democratic things he has done include staffing the government with loyalists over public servants
We knew he was going to elect a different cabinet and that he was going to restaff the government. It was obvious when you consider how many people he hired and fired during his first term, and he campaigned on some of the things he is doing here. And while Project 2025 was not his official policy, overlap was to be expected, given that many of the people behind it had worked under Trump at some point.
Question: If you are a president, why hire/appoint "public servants" who won't easily go along with your policies? Why keep them on your staff? If you want to do your job as efficiently as possible, you will want your subordinates to be loyal. You can call them Trump psychophants, but they do make for greater efficiency, as far as policy is concerned.
I have no problem with this, nor would I have had a problem if Biden had done it. The bigger question is "what are the policies in question?"
passing executive orders that blatantly violate the constitution,
Curious about your examples.
Anyway, here is an example of him doing something that every president with executive orders has done. Thankfully, the courts are a good check, although, as we've previously discussed, things could be better.
violating due process rights for undocumented immigrants,
Citation needed. Let's just say I have a feeling about these claims. I am open-minded. It is possible the few deportations that were claimed to be hasty really were.
overtly weaponizing the DOJ and FCC
The DOJ usage is a clapback for the bogus case(s) that the intelligence community c.2017-2019 came at him with. I have no problem with charges against the Spygate perps.
As for the usage of the FCC to pull the plug on Jimmy Kimmel's show, this is a place where I will join you in condemning Trump. While I wish Kimmel had been pulled off the air long ago, the specific way it happened is something I will never approve of. I will ask, however: Do you condemn the Biden administration for pressuring Twitter and Facebook to censor conservative viewpoints? This is another example of something that no president should have the ability to do. I would love for FCC and all related bureaucracy to be canned, with all necessary functions being privatized.
, using the power of the state to punish those that do not abide by him including threats to blue states for supporting democrats, etc.
Again, citation needed.
Every system is vulnerable so long as there is a person at the top of it, and I hate to tell you, but we haven’t figured out how to not have systems run by people.
Ensuring the right people are in charge is and will always be central to whether any country remains a legitimate democracy, that’s not avoidable.
We have, however, figured out that decentralized authority is harder to abuse and that a more limited government will cause less damage when abused. We've known this since our country's founding. Our government is involved in many corners of American life that the founders would not have dared touch. Like I said, privatization, and amendments protecting privatization + limiting govt even further would be beneficial.
Probably randos on Twitter. Regardless, no serious person would make this claim. Almost certainly, if you’ve heard anyone say it they were being hyperbolic or describing his mentality, not literally saying the US is a dictatorship.
The def weren't hyperbolic, but sure, I'll drop this since you aren't of the group that makes the claim.
Typical MAGA intellectual dishonesty. No one is claiming “personnel changes” makes a dictatorship.
I noted that you were claiming it makes for an ATTEMPT at one...
The point of highlighting the personnel decisions he has made is to demonstrate that this isn’t a man who cares about serving the people who elected him, otherwise he would install people who know how to do that. Instead he’s installing people whose sole qualification is that they’re a Trump sycophant. That is just one of the many things Trump has done that we’ve seen in authoritarian regimes many times before.
...and here you double down on it. Rewording your argument doesn't change it. At the end of the day, the argument is that Trump's personnel changes indicate he is trying to form a dictatorship. I refuted this above.
It’s all you’re going to get because it’s all you want. you like to do what every MAGA cultist does; you compartmentalize everything he does so that you can claim each thing fails on its own to prove the point, then dismiss them all claiming there’s no evidence of it. That’s brazenly dishonest, logic doesn’t work that way. The way you prove a case is by laying out the dots and then connecting them. The connecting is not something I can do for you.
Gee, the bar for "MAGA cultist" sure seems low...
A case... lol. The problem here is that we're not dealing with murder; we're dealing with what is, at best, speculation into his mind. You are not a mind reader. Even all of these, in totality, do not prove a thing, because the fact that he can do all of these without dismantling the system remains. Presidents on both sides have done everything you have alleged, without dismantling the system. The only exception I can see being the government restaffing... which still fails to prove your point, given that there is a good reason to do so.
And at worst?
"Laying out the dots"... If no pillar is strong enough to stand on its own, how can they hold a roof? They can't. You're asking me to accept the validity of arguments based on the number of them. You don't even realize you're arguing in favor of what is essentially Gish gallop. And then you have the gall to call me intellectually dishonest... (seriously, what in the Innuendo Studios is this bullshit? This sounds like an argument he'd make.)
What's the point of everything I have said? If there's one takeaway from this argument, what should it be?
Your most reasonable argument against Trump here is that all presidents (and other politicians!), while not dictators, are closer to being a dictator than they should be. This is an argument from a higher level of understanding that says the system is being dismantled slowly by our politicians, including the presidents, using what was granted by the system itself... one that I have and you don't, since you have too much faith in the current system. So you can't even make this argument without contradicting your viewpoint, because the natural solution is to change the system in a way that severely kneecaps the government's authority by privatizing and decentralizing power, which you mostly oppose.
We should not grant the power to the government that it currently has, and democracy in America is a god that has failed. However, if we must have our current system, it comes with the reality of battles over who wields it, and the reasonable person will (and just did) pick the president who violates fewer liberties.
If my choice is between:
-The Democratic Party, which wants greater censorship, greater firearm restrictions, the subsidizing of ESG firms that sustain woke ideology, wealth redistribution, greater taxation, and the unrestricted migration that enables said party by vote.
-The Republican Party, which opposes the Democrats somewhat (but not really enough, since they engage in some of the faults of the Democratic Party to a lesser extent), slaps ridiculous tariffs on stuff, and maybe deports some immigrants before they should.
My choice is always going to be the Republican Party, until the Libertarian Party gets its shit together.