“(With) today’s Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity, that fundamentally changed. For all practical purposes, there are virtually no limits on what the president can do. It’s a fundamentally new principle and it’s a dangerous precedent because the power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law even including the supreme court of the United States.”
Throughout his address, Biden underscored the gravity of the moment, emphasizing that the only barrier to the president’s authority now lies in the personal restraint of the officeholder. He warned vehemently against the prospect of Trump returning to power, painting a stark picture of the dangers such an outcome could pose.
What is to stop Biden from cancelling the upcoming election?
Being now his powers are effectively unchecked, couldn’t he just call off the election as an official act. Rather than stupid shit like ordering assassination or deploying the military, just say “I’m cancelling the election until such time this ruling is overturned and a constitutional amendment is enacted that states that the president is not immune from criminal prosecution”
He doesn’t need to cancel the elections. He just needs to wait until after the conventions, when congress and the supreme court are in recess. And then he issues an executive order barring convicted felons from holding federal office.
That would be some very funny chaos
Saving that move for Trump. It’s the dystopian future I guess we deserve.
Couldn’t even make it 300 years.
This protects him from prosecution but doesn’t require other officials to help him break the law. States don’t need the president’s approval to run elections, and Congress doesn’t need his approval to certify the votes of electors in the presidential election specifically.
He can just pardon all of them, and his discussions can’t even be questioned in court now. Hell, bribery is legal now too.
This reminds me of something…gaining favor of the ruler is key to your advancement.
Uhhhh he literally can’t. Not because it’s a crime, but because it’s not within his authority. This doesn’t just give them carte blanche to do whatever they want, it just means they can’t be charged with a crime.
He’s the commander in chief of the US military. If there aren’t repercussions for exceeding his authority, it’s essentially unlimited.
There still are repercussions, all that has changed is that personal criminal prosecution is no longer among those.
LOL no, that’s absolutely not true.
Ok, fair enough.
I’m not from the US so my understanding of your system is surface level.
Could he give himself the power to do this?
The US government is based on the idea of separation of powers, and making the President as weak as possible while still being able to do his job. The President can’t just decide he has a new authority, Congress has to sign legislation that delegates a specific authority to the President. That authority is typically organized in the from of a Cabinet office, which is filled with the advise and consent or Congress.
America was made to abolish kings, that’s why this ruling is so ludicrous, so antithetical to the very Constitution the court is supposed to uphold, and why people are so up in arms about it.
No, he does not have the authority to give himself the authority to cancel the election.
The president can’t actually make law, as far as I understand it. He, and the various offices managed by the executive branch, apply and enforce the law which Congress has written (give or take some interpretation by the courts).
Sometimes of those laws specifically give the executive broad enough authority over something that it’s very similar to the president being able to write laws about it, but it’s not quite the same and it cant overrule actual laws
Only in times of war. It’s literally one of the checks and balances to specifically prevent a president from stopping an election. Now, if we start a full blown war with Russia…
I hear those checks and balances are starting to look a little unreliable.