[ExI] My prediction

[Ben Zaiboc]

On Thursday, 8 January 2026 at 18:54, spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat
> 
> ...
> 
> > ...So the constitutional safeguards that spike keeps mentioning are in fact powerless....
> 
> 
> On the contrary Ben. The constitution is what is preventing the current POTUS from becoming a dictator. He wasn't able to command the government back into business during the shutdown for instance, even with majorities in both houses of the legislature.
> 
> > ...Spike, can you say why this might not be the case? How can the constitution be enforced when the enforcers are in collusion with the person who wants to ignore it? (I'm assuming we can all agree that Trump does want to override the constitutional safeguards imposed on the office of POTUS? If not, we need a very strong argument that this is not true)... Ben
> 
> 
> Had POTUS been able to violate the constitution he would have held the office in Jan 2021 and prevented the government shutdown of Oct 2025. That office is far more limited than Americans imagine. This is by design. The design works. It worked in Jan 2021, it will work again in Jan 2029.
> 
> The US government conniptions we are seeing now are really a lot more about absurd overspending for decades, causing the interest cost to go thru the roof. Our two mainstream parties are doing little or nothing about that. They each have their own agendas for which they overspend. From the Libertarian point of view, they are nearly indistinguishable. This was what caused the shutdown of Oct 2025 and may cause another one soon. POTUS cannot stop this, for that office does not have the authority.
> 
> spike
> 

You're giving examples of where the POTUS hasn't violated the constitution. That's not what I'm asking.
I'm asking what's stopping him from doing so, when he apparently has all the mechanisms designed to do this working for him?

What, specifically, keeps the POTUS in line? What are the actual mechanisms that are supposed to prevent a president becoming a dictator?
I understand that the founders were clever, and wrote a document that is supposed to achieve this, but what I'm not sure about is the specifics, the mechanisms. How is the constitution actually enforced?

If the president has the ability to get the high court, the military and the police to do exactly what he tells them, what then compels him to obey the constitution and prevents him from becoming a dictator?

You say the design works. What is the design?

---
Ben