<div dir="auto"><div>If we want to seriously discuss the possibility of a sitting President successfully enacting a coup d'etat in the United States [as opposed to mindless partisan posturing], I would submit that an absolutely necessary precondition would be cult-of-personality levels of popularity amongst the military, including prominent senior leadership.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">In the last 40 years, only Reagan and Bush II have been even close. Trump isn't even in the same zipcode, let alone the ballpark.<br><br><div class="gmail_quote" dir="auto"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 4:50 PM Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="auto">+1. I will also offer this bet to any takers. </div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 6:23 PM Darin Sunley via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="auto">I will bet anyone who wants to take it <span>$100</span> USD that President Trump will obey the results of the elections of both 2020 and, if applicable, 2024.<div dir="auto"><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I have been hearing this ridiculous horse puckey my entire life - that [insert President here] will declare themselves Caesar and President-for-Life.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">It was implausible nonsense about Obama.</div><div dir="auto">It was implausible nonsense about Bush II.</div><div dir="auto">It was implausible nonsense about Clinton.</div><div dir="auto">It was implausible nonsense about Bush I.</div><div dir="auto">It was implausible nonsense about Reagan.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">It makes the otherwise reasonable, intelligent people who spout it, on bith sides of the aisle, sound like paranoid loons.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">There are many plausible failure modes of a complete breakdown of federal politics.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Caesars are not one of them.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I may have ti make this offer every election year - like your psychic research wager.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Just stop this. It's silly.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">[Of the presidents in that list the most worrying was actually Bush I. Word-to-the-wise: don't elect former heads of the CIA to high office. They know where entirely too many bodies are buried, from direct involvement in the burial.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Until we see a President normalizing wearing a high ranking service uniform and supplementing the Secret Service with mainline military units and/or private security forces, we're a long way from El Presidente.]</div><div dir="auto"><br></div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 3:45 PM John Clark via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><font size="4">The grand whitewash has now been successfully completed. The US Senate, the so called "greatest deliberative body in the world" has cowardly made it clear that it doesn't want to know the truth and will do everything in its power to prevent you or any of the American people from knowing it. And so only one more step is needed for the march toward dictatorship to be complete, staying in power after January 20 2021 regardless of the November election results.</font><br><div><font size="4"><br></font><div><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font size="4">John K Clark</font></span></div></div></div>
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