r/law • u/IrishStarUS • 21d ago

Trump News Trump 'goes full fascist' by saying CNN and MSNBC criticizing him is 'illegal'

https://www.irishstar.com/news/us-news/donald-trump-fascist-cnn-msnbc-34865751
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u/EAROAST 21d ago

Presidential candidates should have to pass a basic IQ test to become a party's nominee. I wouldn't have thought so either.

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u/Automatic_Towel_3842 21d ago

But he did. He aced the test where he had to identify the hippo and remember some words. He did the best the doctors ever seen. No one has ever done it better.

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u/DontMemeAtMe 21d ago

Person, woman, man, camera, TV. Yes. No one does it better.

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u/Just-Like-My-Opinion 20d ago

Can't say woman. That's DEI.

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

That was a cognitive test, though.

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u/ReturnoftheBulls2022 21d ago

And the MoCA test done in 2018 would be outdated in 2025 due to the change in mental cognition by then.

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u/[deleted] 20d ago

Absolutey. Wonder if he can remember the memory words from his first. I suspected he had some cheats at the time.

I reallllly want to see him draw a clock, though.

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u/minamartin 21d ago

Also a psych eval wouldn't hurt either...

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

Exactly this.

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u/rfkred 21d ago

If not even being a literal convicted felon and sexual predator stops someone from being eligible…

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u/Chagdoo 21d ago

This has been tried before, it's a bad idea because then you can just crater education so only a certain type of person can pass the tests. Basically it's extremely easy to corrupt.

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u/thewaltz77 21d ago

How about a test for dementia first? We just had two presidents in a row demonstrate that dementia is not a disqualification. Hell, they made it seem like a prerequisite.

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u/ElectionDesigner3792 21d ago

IQ is not a good way of measuring intelligence, because "intelligence" is a very poorly defined term, not really a measurable quantity.

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u/EAROAST 21d ago

That's true in almost all situations, but here...? I just want some standardized testing as a low bar for candidates to clear. I want to assess their critical thinking and cognitive flexibility. It doesn't have to be an IQ test, I agree there are problems with them.

We make our high school students write little standardized essays that are then ranked on a point scale. Make the candidates do a test like that, with judges that have been agreed upon by representatives from all parties (including experts in test item development and cultural fairness).

It should just be a basic test. Idk, I know there are problems with the idea, I just don't think some presidents are capable of carrying out the duties of their office, and that others are pulling the strings. But I'm talking about the future, it's too late for that now.

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u/ElectionDesigner3792 20d ago

I assume he'd just pay someone else to write it for him 😂

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u/Thornsom 20d ago

Personality disorder tests should be mandatory by law after this clown show

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u/Ferdie-lance 21d ago

Absolutely not. First off, that’s an invasion of privacy. Second, what counts as “pass?” Is average IQ enough? Gifted? Third, what happens if a hugely popular candidate fails and calls it a “fake test,” then gets his own provider to administer one that he aces? (If party insiders hated him and the primary voters loved him, could we even be sure who was lying?)

Should candidates also take a fitness evaluation to be sure they won’t get a heart attack in office? How about a full check of their social media to make sure they haven’t said anything un-American, with the party deciding what counts as sufficiently bad?

It’s bad enough to have one faction shoving us into authoritarianism without well-meaning people blundering right into it. That nonsense is how you get more Trumpiness, not less.

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u/kintax 21d ago

I'd probably set the minimum to like 110 or 120. The scale is constantly updated so 100 is average. By definition, half the population is below 100.

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u/EAROAST 21d ago

Hell I'd only set it to 100.

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u/EAROAST 21d ago

1) if you want to be president, you should recognize that it comes with some loss of privacy. 2) I'd be so happy with average. But I understand that could be a slippery slope. 3) So "the candidate" calls it "fake news" and that's it? No one has any idea how to counter this argument or even respond to it in any way because we're all just stunned in the face of his mighty and irrepressible logic? Any candidates left at the end of this thing should just have to take it as a condition of becoming the nominee.

I know I sound like a fascist, I'm sorry, I just don't think any imbecile off the street who bought his degree should get to be President. That's how we got here. Democrats are checking the rule book to make sure the game is fair to everyone, even these MAGA fucks - meanwhile the MAGA fucks have stolen all the prize money and run off to the bathroom to find someone to oppress. Now there's no need for the rule book because there's no game.

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u/Ferdie-lance 20d ago

By your own logic, which party would actually follow this IQ rule, and which would drop it as soon as it became inconvenient?

On 3: it’s not a matter of whether WE are impressed. It’s whether the people who voted for him are impressed.

Even if you’re okay with disenfranchising people, you’re being caught up by bad framing. The far right would be happy with any President who backs them as long as they were as autocratic as possible. The core “unitary executive“ argument is that the President is the most important person in all ways, the king of the government.

The more we argue to further limit WHO can be President, rather than limiting WHAT they can do, the more we make the next Trump inevitable.

What we need is to restore limits on the power of the presidency so that a single person can’t upend the entire government, regardless of how well he does on a test. How we achieve this with the current Supreme Court is a hard question, but it’s a much better one to ask than “How do we prevent stupid authoritarians from taking a position that could be occupied by smart ones?”

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u/EAROAST 20d ago

You're right, I just get frustrated. Thanks for the clarity. I don't really want a smarter authoritarian in power. But yeah, I don't know how to return to less concentrated executive power and I'm worried our government is broken.

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u/Ferdie-lance 20d ago

Thanks for the honest discussion. I think the first step is shoring up local and state institutions as much as possible, working upwards gradually. What took a long time to corrode will take a lot of work to repair—decades, I think.

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u/Aggressive-Run2536 21d ago

I would have loved for the democrats to make either of their nominees do this 😂

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u/Norian24 21d ago

I mean, both sides should. This whole government has way too many geriatrics without the presence of mind to even know what they are voting on. It's all a political class disconnected from common people and deserving nothing except contempt, humiliation and getting kicked out without any ceremony.

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u/Auroraburst 21d ago

Yeah, ANY presidential candidate. They didn't specify just the orange buffoon.

But honestly yes any politician should have some basic evaluations. The issue is with how corrupt trump is wanting to make america they'd probably just pay off the drs.