I *think* they are beginning to get it.

No, not MAGA, but the never Trump folks who have been quick to point to guardrails and impairments to Trump's blitzkrieg thru the government. That was always a stretch.

I have had a few testy exchanges liberal leaning ‘Stack writers who are lawyers or involved in the legal field. Most of them I respect, because, apart from dating a lawyer in the 1990s (not recommended for your sanity unless you are also a lawyer, YMMV) I most definitely am not a lawyer.

These people have been issuing a steady drumbeat of “the lawyers, the AG’s and the like are filing a tsunami of suits against Trump, and that these are likely to be able to be won, and to curtail the obvious abuses of power and extra-Constitutional actions.

When I point out that winning a case is one thing, and a notch in the lawyer’s belt that a win brings, but precisely WHO and HOW will these court orders be enforced?

They then devolve into “rule of law” and “the American way” and “American Exceptionalism”, and even one said that Trump values the appearance of “Legitimacy” and craves popular support¹.

Yeah, that fucking tracks.

As is the custom, I listen to podcasts while I walk my dog every morning, and yesterday (Saturday, Feb 8, 2025) I queued up the “Conway Explains to Sarah” podcast — a Bulwark offer — expecting the usual "blah blah blah, he’s getting his wings clipped in the courts, blah blah blah.²”

No, for once, George really laid out the current state. Sure, Trump and his minions are going to be ruled against, often. They will be beaten and battered like a rented mule. In fact that is already happening, but it really doesn’t seem to be working.

And as I have expressed in various Substack notes threads that sure, Trump and his merry band of arsonists will lose cases, but who enforces these rulings? Uh, on Federal matters, that duty lies with the US Marshalls service. The Marshalls are part of the Department of Justice. And who precisely runs the DoJ? That would be full MAGA, January 6th denier, Pam Bondi.

And who would investigate the shut in incels that Musk has traipsing through the Federal Bureaucracy? That would be the FBI, soon to be headed by Ka$h “Enemies List” Patel, who also is under the DoJ.

And when it does get to the SCOTUS, Roberts and the “centrist” conservative justices³ have a choice: Do they cave and let Trump spit the dummy and get away with it (rule for him over the Constitution that they so often wipe their asses with), or do they rule that it violates the constitution, daring Trump to disobey their ruling(s).

Because you know goddamn well that Trump is just itching for his Andrew Jackson moment.

George finally has come to the realization that the concept of “rule of law” is about to be flushed into the oubliette of history. After a couple of months of “surely the rule of law will hold”, he is seeing it like I have from the beginning, that all our vaunted principles are merely polite obeyance of the norms and rules, and that Trump will not just test it, but will blow through it like a Tesla in autopilot wiping out a child.

And for once Sarah seemed to get it that the darkest place imaginable is not a theoretical, but almost an assured outcome.

The proof point is the eradication of USAID, a Congressionally enacted department, that Elon Musk invaded and essentially shut down.

Congress is frozen, but it seems that there is no lower bound that the Republicans will not cross in their race to tongue bathe Trump’s scrotal sac. They have 100% given up their Constitutional granted powers to Trump.

When George says that the only solution will be mass protests in the streets by the general population. But one has to expect that will lead to a declaration of martial law and unleashing the MAGAfied armed services against the protesters.

We are headed for a bleak time folks.

1.

2. Seriously, go to any of these episodes since the election in November 2024, and you have George Conway III issuing the platitudes I described above.

3. How fucked is it that Kavanaugh, Roberts, and Coney-Barrett are the “reasonable” conservative Justices…