askchapo

There's way too much money in the spectacle. The only way elections ever get cancelled in this country is if an anti-capitalist third party gets popular enough to have a reasonable chance at winning.

Not very, sham elections would be better for them than no elections. The illusion of choice is important

Does it even matter? Elections in the US have one, singular function - to make USians incorrectly think they have any say in their governance.

There’s going to be an election, unless there’s like a military coup or something. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be fair or untampered, but elections are a very useful charade for the ruling party.

It lets the ill informed still people in a vague sense of democracy, of placid stability. It lets people think they can Vote out their problems. It’s also a giant economic driver, both for politicians and the industries that support them. If elections stop, that gravy train becomes much less certain.

Basically, there are countless reasons why some form of election will almost certainly happen. Just, an election in a vacuum isn’t necessarily meaningful to a governmental change.

There's too much money to be made by too many consultancies, advertising agencies, etc. The grift is too lucrative for too many influential people for the election industry to just vanish. I'd sooner bet on more extreme voter suppression and more outright corruption in the process than the process stopping.

They'll have elections. Russia has been having elections since capitalists stole the 1996 election.

Basically every country nowadays has elections, even ones that are pretty blatantly not genuine. There's no real reason not to have elections, especially if you can manage to institutionally legally rig the results (like Mussolini's parliamentary electionlaws, lol).

Of course there will be elections. Everywhere has elections, even if they're obviously undemocratic (which the US elections always were). There's zero reason to change that, and elections are a very useful tool for influencing and controlling the public.

Also, who establishes a dictatorship in their 80's? He's gonna die soon anyway.

This is one of those things where it's less about reality and more about what it signals. Libs are signalling how important they consider elections to be, and trying to either scare people into voting or get them to appreciate being able to vote.

Pfft stop listening to libs bro

elections will happen and unfortunatly for you republicans will win anyways

The duopoly is a form of domestic counterinsurgency that has continued to be worth its weight in gold. There will be elections and there will probably always be elections. I see a dictatorial duopoly much more likely, the duopoly taken to farcical extremes:

1. Banning all third parties

2. Passing a law that says every state must have a Republican senator and a Democrat senator

3. Having various "nonpartisan" committees and departments be staffed exclusively by Democrats and Republicans with proportions split completely 50/50.

4. Having a "nonpartisan" president as some fascist-with-burger-characteristic return to the past like Washington and a "divided" cabinet that's 50/50 Democrats and Republicans in order to "bridge the divide."

This can also dovetails nicely towards a military coup. The "nonpartisan" civil government gets replaced by a "nonpartisan" military junta.

well the mainstream libs - the people whose entire identity is that they're wrong about everything - seem obsessed with the possibility of trump cancelling the elections, so i'm going to say it's not gonna happen

Elections in the US will be gone very soon, replaced by a Mr. Beast style challenge. "SURVIVE 100 days LOCKED in the Oval Office to become PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES". Combined with some UFC style wrestling, commentary by Joe Rogan. And then finished off with a McDonald's mukbang.

i dont think trump will be alive. i dont know how that effects the chances tbh

There will definitely be an election in 2028, barring something like nuclear war. “Free and fair elections™” like we’re used to is another question.

It’s a lot harder to just not have elections than it is to run elections in a way that ensures you and your side win handily. Nazi Germany had elections.

I’m not entirely sure I understand why this is. Maybe if you fully cancel elections people become a lot more likely to start shooting at you?

there is no reason for them to stop elections, the democrats share most of the goals of the republicans
they would be giving up the polite fiction of am*rican democracy for no benefit

0% Trump loves elections, the pageantry and the opportunity to go on TV and talk shit

I think we have elections, I think trump tries to find a way to angle for a third term, but when the time comes will just be too old.

I think we will get a real cabinet of curiosities for GOP contenders.

Gruesome will probably the dem nominee and lose to Holden bloodfeast

Because FDR won so many times in a row - the constitution was changed to only allow a president a maximum of two terms. It's the 22nd Amendment. So it's 100% obviously illegal and anti-constitutional for Trump to run for a third term. There's zero gray area on this. But I think the GOP justices on the supreme court will pervert the constitution somehow (Don't ask me how) and they'll say Trump can run for a third term. If GOP SCOTUS does that - they've crossed the Rubicon. The constitution becomes a meaningless joke. GOP SCOTUS has proclaimed they can and will do whatever they want.

I believe if GOP SCOTUS decides to rule on Trump's desire to run for a third term - that's the day Trump has already won his third term. And Trump clearly wants a third term. In 2024 - GOP SCOTUS's presidential immunity ruling created a monster when Trump won the election. They effectively killed his three big criminal trials and they helped him become president because they wanted him to win. But they also made it so criminal law doesn't apply to President Trump. If GOP SCOTUS seem to waiver on Trump's third term - he could threaten them with imprisonment, torture, or death.

Liberals think that if Trump can run for a third term then Obama can do right? Obama will win! Ah, no. That's not how things will happen. Trump has already won and presidential elections will be a sham and charade.

Oh there will be elections. Sham ones.

Sham elections are the standard playbook, and are effective. It would be a major misstep by Republicans to do stuff like ban elections and protests, since these are important pressure release valves for political dissatisfaction.

I think it's probably a major messaging misstep by liberals to beat the drums about how "we might now have elections in 2028", because we obviously will. You can see a bit of pivoting on that message now that Republicans are showing some of their election manipulation playbook for upcoming elections.

I think whatever happens you have to remember there's an intersection of stupid and funny that must be satisfied. Divine it with me. The axioms: it has to be existentially concerning. They must say the quiet part out loud. They have to tread. So let's say they demand IDs to vote, right? The sort of thing they would do. If it's simply ICE at the polling booths to check for ID then nothing will have happened in the intervening years. It's gotta be more! Something like "ICE gets to count the votes because illegals like the Democrats and that would give them a chance to regain power". So that's the bad news. Circling back, the funny part? Trump sues ICE when a viral video shows them burning early votes because they made him look bad. Some polling places get Tesla robots to scan IDs instead in response.

That's what the US seems like from my perspective

We have elections in the US? First I'm hearing of it. Big if true.

They'll hold elections but they'll set up out-in-open voter roll purgers like they've done in several states already, dilute democratic votes with gerrymandering, and intimidate people. It'll be a total mess.

That said, I legit think we are gonna see a total breakdown before 2028.

Not only are there enormous class interests of the top of the bourgeois in holding elections (due to the associated spending and the legitimising of their rule) but it is also needlessly a potential catalyst for the military and other institutions to step in as they threatened to do at the end of Trump's last term due to their own interests. It would divide the current rulers for no gain

A better question is if the election would be a total sham.

It’s just a fantasy from people who have never actually lived in a dictatorship. Elections are a huge business and we all know how much Americans love money. They’ll stay around as rigged as they can be.

if you consider American elections to be "fair and fair" to the democratic and republican parties (we all know it's not free or fair for the others)

then I would say it's not happening ,elections will stay the same they have been for the last half a century and nothing will change

I have no idea why any self proclaimed communist would believe otherwise

also republicans don't need to cheat to beat democrats

probably won't happen, not because the elections would be fair, but because trump and the GOP like parading elections as noble while taking away the things that actually make them fair, though to be fair, it's basically from a duo-party control to one party control.

The thing is we've crossed a real river here in terms of retribution against political opponents. The Democrats went after Trump using the law and actually arrested him and went after people around him. The thing is they missed, they weren't serious about it and didn't land more than a scratch but it's angered and freaked out the Republicans who are doing a little bit of the inverse against their opponents and are convinced that if they lose power they'll be subject to more of the same from Democrats so have an extra strong incentive to rig things and do everything to stay in power so that power can't be used against them.

However, elections are an almost certainty, the military would likely get involved and arrest or shoot anyone trying seriously to prevent elections taking place because they're that important as a relief valve.

But those elections are likely to be even more crooked than usual. Voter roll purges, ballot invalidation, gerrymandering, etc, etc. Taken to new levels IF NECESSARY. But it's important to understand this too isn't new. Bush 2000 only won because Florida rigged the vote by invalidating/questioning ballots and the Supreme Court stopped the count. So we're 25 years beyond election rigging being normal and USians getting mildly upset but basically going back to brunch because eh what can they do.

Liberals and chuds will both be in hysterics about election interference and whoever loses will have a large chunk of their base not accept it.

They will. Usual public farce illusion of choice of which the public still won't learn or look or care.

The kind of "free and fair" 2-party ones we're used to? It depends on how badly Trump fucks up; whether some combination of the AI bubble popping, tariffs and sanctions collapsing the US dollar as a reserve currency, plus a failed war or wars with Venezuela, Iran, Russia, or China makes Trump and the Republicans so toxically unpopular and their position so diminished that they're forced to allow them.

If the ruling class is sufficiently united, then they will keep elections as they have for 250 years. After all, if the ruling class remains united, an election cannot change anything and there is no reason to get rid of it.

But if there is a genuine danger of a fracture in the ruling class, then the ruling class of America will move towards a more open form of dictatorship to keep itself in line and disciplined.

Fascism, or what marx called bonapartism is basically the ruling class version of bolsheivism. It is a form of self-discipline under a reactionary vanguard. The vanguard establishes a dictatorship only when the electoral mechanism is perceived as "failed". And this requires an irreconcilable fracture.

I expect them to deploy ICE to polling stations.

If Trump bites it, elections are still on

If Dems eat shit during the midterms, then the second confidence boost given to MAGA may tip this newest outburst of fascism into a feral state, which could see the election canceled or delayed because of "security concerns" and "interference"

How mask off the supreme court continues to get also determines the likelihood of national election suppression

90% there will be no elections.

Idk man