You’d think a hegemony with a 100-years tradition of upkeeping democracy against major non-democratic players, would have some mechanism that would prevent itself from throwing down it’s key ideology.
Is it really that the president is all that decides about the future of democracy itself? Is 53 out of 100 senate seats really enough to make country fall into authoritarian regime? Is the army really not constitutionally obliged to step in and save the day?
I’d never think that, of all places, American democracy would be the most volatile.
Yes they do, but why bring this up now? No President has claimed to be a Nazi. Trump is a big supporter of the Jewish state.
They mean ‘fascist’. Fascists are not automatically anti-semitic.
Yeah, he’s not even likely to annex Austria in a foreseeable future. And he doesn’t seem to have claims on Sudetenland either.
So no, not a nazi, nuh uh, nazism is only when perfectly replaying the Third Reich mission.
The US empire chooses to ally with any group who opposes Russia or uses mineral/oil wealth as significant public welfare enhancement instead of enriching their rulership or privatizing for cheap bribes to US national champions, and not being a US weapons customer. This already makes the US empire a demonic evil fascist force. It calling apartheid ethnostates of Ukraine and Israel “great democracies”, and all elections that go against it “rigged” is an ultra fascist view. Control over colonies media is control over their democracy, and control over their people to ensure subservience of allies. Internally, to US, there is always money for the empire and the oligarchy, never for people.
The veneer of democracy and “rules based world order allies” is a BS that helps with its demonism. But removing the veneer to demand more tribute from colonies, and Americans is not change. It simply removes the emperor’s veil/clothing. If voting could change anything, it would be illegal.
Trump can help Americans realize this. But if you were praising US democracy/values before this, you simply were not paying attention closely enough.
Is the army really not constitutionally obliged to step in and save the day?
The constitution is no protection against the Army. A military coup does not necessarily mean a more militarist US, or anti-American, anti-pluralist/liberty government. Asking/supporting the military to depose corrupt leaders should be based on that corruption, not looking up whether a nation’s constitution permits it (they never do).
The problem is he won the election.
The vote is the final check and balance.
49% of Voters are either sympatico or stupid.
100 years? We very nearly reached 250.
Op is referring to 100 years of “upkeeping democracy”. I guess he was able to pick 100 from 250.
40% of the time it’s democracy 100% of the time
The voters were supposed to be that check and the Framers were explicit in that it was part of how they designed the Constitution.
Even regarding electing a felon, the Framers didn’t want a case where one state pushed through a a felony conviction quickly to keep someone out of office.
Yes, being able to elect a criminal is by design. I’m sure all of the founders were designated as criminals by England. It’s the will of the people over the government which was like their whole thing.
Until the people change their mind we are stuck with Trump and or his cronies.
That conviction was nothing like rushed.
That conviction wasn’t rushed. But imagine it was the fall of 2020 and Trump thought there was a decent chance he might lose. Order his attorney general to indict candidate Biden on some random charge, force it through the courts to get a conviction, removing any judges that object or stall. Voila, Biden has a conviction and can’t run against Trump.
We have the second amendment, but I don’t know how bear arms will help.
ARM THE BEARS!
BEAR FLAG REPUBLIC!
Bear arms are not effective against HIMARS and drones, but history is full of small uprisings, winning.
The US government is not (and has never been) against fascism for ideological reasons. Fascism and American-style democracy go hand in hand quite well. Our government fought a war against fascists because they disrupted the global trade status quo and threatened US economic prosperity and that of our primary trade partners.
I don’t think you know what being a Nazi looks like.
Just to be clear, your solution to saving democracy would be for the military to usurp a president who received the majority of the vote less than six months ago?
USA hasn’t been a democracy for decades. It’s hard to pin it down to a certain tipping point but I’d hazard it was when you decided that corporations are people and buying politicians is free speech.
Hold your ponies. The US is very much still a democracy, if a flawed one in many ways. The US has always been a country run by the wealthy elites, as are most countries in the world.
Buying politicians works, especially in the US, regardless of party. Democrats and Republicans are both the parties of big business and capital interests.
Besides laws around spending money for political purposes, the media landscape has revolutionized over the last 20 years. The role social media has played in Trump‘s ascendancy can’t be overstated. Trump spent less than Kamala Harris in this election and still won, because of his exceptional way to use media to his advantage.
The military has rules limiting what they can do, especially against acting within the US, and every service member is supposed to disobey illegal orders.
Sometimes a voting population needs to be protected from the consequences of their vote, right? A good chunk of the German voting population in the 1930 voted the NSDAP and Hitler into power, and we can agree that it would have been for the best if that party and its leadership had been deposed ASAP. Now, the US isn’t quite that far down the slide yet, but they’re certainly slipping, and the worst part is that the checks and balances that are supposed to keep a president in line are also failing. Not to be alarmist, but we’re in for a wild ride.
Your first question is pretty philosophical. All I can say, is that most representative governments place a huge emphasis on giving the people the power to write their own collective destiny.
A military takeover based on the desires of a minority of citizens would violate that principal. I don’t think any reasonable person can call it saving democracy.
Yes, but it is a question that is pertinent to the situation. What do you do if a population elects someone that starts undermining their democracy? I understand that forcibly taking that person’s power away is in itself anti-democratic, but if their actions are even worse, then it would be justified right? A smaller anti-democratic act to stop the larger anti-democratic effort where they’re dismantling the democratic system that put them in power.
You’re basically describing the Riechstag fire decree.
Or Stauffenberg’s assassination attempt. That’s the problem with this, it all depends on what the consequences of waiting it out are.
a huge emphasis on giving the people the power to write their own collective destiny.
A functional democracy is not a dictatorship of the majority, and people from the US love making this mistake. It is true that the president gets elected by a majority vote… but this person now represents everyone, including the minority that opposes them. They do not have the right to sink the ship and kill everyone because the majority thinks that’s a good idea.
It is natural that their government will make decisions aligned with their voters (in theory) but they shouldn’t be allowed to actively undermine the rights of everyone else.
No matter how inflated your perception of your “flawless” constitution and democracy is, this is something many countries understand pretty well and yours struggles with.
If you honestly think a military junta would be more representative of the American people than Trump, then I don’t know what to tell you.
Also our president is not elected via majority (or plurality) vote. This has been one of the major complaints about the American political system since 2000, so I gotta wonder how much you’re paying attention.
If you honestly think a military junta would be more representative of the American people than Trump, then I don’t know what to tell you.
Good thing I never made such claim and absolutely nothing on my comment reaches that conclusion, then.
Also our president is not elected via majority (or plurality) vote.
The details about your horrendous electoral system are irrelevant to the point, which by now is very clear you didn’t understand.
You’re not doing much to fight the stereotype of americans lacking basic reading comprehension though.
The point is that you don’t know the first thing about American politics, and are wholly unqualified to make any comments about it.
The point is that you don’t know the first thing about American politics,
You couldn’t even comprehend the point being made, misinterpreting it so fundamentally I genuinely - non-ironically - believe you struggled reading the words being written.
and are wholly unqualified to make any comments about it.
And yet, what I wrote is an aspect of democratic structures so fundamentally basic it wouldn’t even matter if the US was the target of the comment. Funny how that is.
Sometimes a voting population needs to be protected from the consequences of their vote
Who should have the power to make that decision?
Do you want a benevolent king at the top that can dissolve parliament, dismiss government, call for new elections, make parties illegal, and censor the press?
Or maybe have something like an electoral college?
Or the army coups, if things get too far?
The ultimate check on power is the people. A general strike, large scale protests, and occupation of public buildings can topple a government. Institutions from military, police, local government, government agencies, and so on value their positions and won’t go down with a sinking ship.
In a functioning democracy, there are legal systems already in place that prevent extreme negative consequences for the population and the democracy itself. The US just isn’t a functioning democracy, and the checks and balances that are supposed to protect the system have been eroded. Impeachment is one such mechanism that’s become dysfunctional - a democratic process to protect the democracy from autocrats. I do hope you’re right and the American people manage to pull through this somehow. But failing that, an intervention from either domestic or foreign forces can be justified depending on how severe the threat to the population is.
I believe this is where the second amendment comes into play. Luigi was on to something.
This is something we can all agree on, including Mr. President. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/us/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton.html
Depends how you define “instruments”. For example, there was a recent survey that we have something like 500 million, uh, instruments.
We enter parliament in order to supply ourselves, in the arsenal of democracy, with its own weapons. If democracy is so stupid as to give us free tickets and salaries for this bear’s work, that is its affair. We do not come as friends, nor even as neutrals. We come as enemies. As the wolf bursts into the flock, so we come.
Joseph Goebbels
The mechanism is the three branches of power providing checks and balances and voting. But when the people elect them to all three branches. It kinda defeats the purpose
Also Benjamin Franklin said that he believed constitution should torn up and redone every 30 years. We shouldn’t even be using it 200 years later.
I know about Jefferson and his 20 year automatic sunset phase for laws at all levels, except for Constitutions, charters, and other founding documents that can be amended. Hadn’t heard that Franklin wanted to sunset the Constitution itself as well. Not sure that we would have lasted this long if Franklin had gotten his way there. I do think that Jefferson and Madison were on the right track with the federal, state, and local laws though. Tyranny of the dead and all that.
Are you ready for some tearing up and redoing of constitution now?
Let’s go crowd sourced, a la Iceland. That truly opened my eyes to the political possibilities in the Internet age… If only big corps didn’t make all the decisions.
No, I’m ready for something else though are you?
I’m flattered, but I’m not in the mood right now. I’ll be in my corner worrying about constitution redoings…
Do you really want to do that now knowing who would put an autograph there?
Exactly, that was my point.
Sure, you’d end up with at least two countries because many states would just refuse to join the new republic.
Trump has admitted he rigged the election
Where did you hear that?
This is insane… But also his discourse is so incoherent that one could argue he was being sarcastic or something.
Don’t join the felon’s defenders. We’re in this deep in part because people dismiss what they don’t want to believe from him as jokes.
The insurrectionist is telling us his crimes. Bragging about them even. He’s proud of them.
Trump has said that Elon “knows those computers better than anybody … And we ended up winning Pennsylvania like in a landslide”.
First of all, we know that to be false because we know Elon doesn’t know shit about computers. But, aside from that, there are multiple possible interpretations of what he meant, anything from “Elon rigged the election” to “Elon ensured the integrity of the election”.
My policy is “Don’t believe anything Trump says about anything”. I don’t change that policy when he says something that I want to believe is true.
Wanna see a letter from several computer science PhDs to Kamala Harris presenting plausible evidence that MAGA hacked the voting machines?
https://freespeechforpeople.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/letter-to-vp-harris-111324.pdf
That’s not what that letter says. It says that operatives may have gained access to the software used to count votes, and if that happened they may have been able to probe that software for weaknesses.
What it doesn’t say is that there was a subsequent, second breach of the voting machines in which doctored software was then installed.
It’s like someone gaining access to blueprints for a bank vault. Yes, that theoretically lowers the security of the vault, but it doesn’t prove that a bank heist has taken place, just that a heist is more likely to be possible now.
Okay so what do you do when the mob gets the blueprints for the bank vault, and then a few weeks later the Don brags about all the money he stole?
The Don who lies constantly about everything? Who didn’t even say “we stole the money” but more, “Elmo is good with bank stuff, and we have lots of money”? The same guy who wouldn’t know how to read a blueprint, and would probably just post a picture of the blueprint on social media to generate controversy and traffic? The Don who, if he actually had broken into the bank, wouldn’t be able to shut up about it, and would be bragging about it non-stop, probably by doing live-streams from within the bank vault?
You don’t assume that he hit the bank. You follow your normal security procedures, and check that what you expect to see in the vault is what you actually see in the vault. Then you just ignore the blowhard.
But the people in charge didn’t check. Harris was told to ask for a recount, and she didn’t.
If the people responsible for security won’t do their due diligence, drag is going to play it safe and assume they fucked up.
