General Discussion

I should point out in response that while Trump was stymied in the examples you gave, the law/the system did not prevent him from carrying most of them out in the first place. No troops were deployed to Chicago or Portland, but they were deployed to Los Angeles and Washington DC. Kilmar Garcia is free on US soil, but only after he was sent to a torture prison in El Salvador. The indictments against James and Comey were dismissed, but only after Trump ordered the DOJ to file charges against them. Garcia, James, Comey, and the people of LA and DC were all victims of Trump's abuses of power before the system stymied him.

For what it's worth, I don't think that Trump will try to cancel the elections, because it would require a *significant* amount of effort to pull off something like that up front, and I don't think Americans would sit by silently if their right to vote was taken away. But it does seem like there is a strong chance -- to me at least, based on past performance -- that after the mid-terms occur, and Democrats sweep the GOP out of power (at least in the House, maybe the Senate), that Trump will do anything and everything he can to prevent them from actually taking power. We already saw what he did when he lost in 2020.

I will say it does bother me when I hear him "joking" about doing things that are clearly illegal, just because of how often those rotten trial balloons seem to end up becoming actual policy. But thanks for your thoughts, I appreciate the perspective. Despite my post, and despite events unfolding around us, in many ways I'm feeling more optimistic about this year than I was about last year.