This is likely game over for Democrats and democracy in the US. Democracy has already been on the backslide here for some time, so it’s not overly surprising, but I don’t expect either to last the next couple of years.
Citizens United and the coup attempt neither being treated as five-alarm fires for our Democracy were probably the moments when a major slide toward authoritarianism became far, far more likely. Democrats just sat on their hands.
By the time we got to the news that at least two Supreme Court justices and very likely more are being bought, and collectively shrugged rather than making that the issue until they were out, well, that wasn’t so much a landmark on the way down as another ordinary day.
"Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even talk, alone; you don't want to 'go out of your way to make trouble.' Why not?-Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty. Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, 'everyone' is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there would be slogans against the government painted on walls and fences; in Germany, outside the great cities, perhaps, there is not even this. In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, 'It's not so bad' or 'You're seeing things' or 'You're an alarmist.'
"And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can't prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don't know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have....
"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
"And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way."
— Milton Sanford Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45
Excellent book. I read this book after my WWII Veteran relatives passed away, had fought in Europe and survived the Battle of the Bulge. His wife invited everyone over and wanted everyone to look through his books and take some that looked interesting.
That's one of the ones I took, certainly the one I remember most.
I'm reminded of how we react to pandemics. If we are successful with vaccines or masks or whatever, then not many people get sick and die. No big crisis. And people are wondering "why did we do that, see it was no big deal".
It's the same looming issue with climate change.
And they all have the same undercurrent: doing something might cost us money, so we don't do it. Thus the economy being the greatest predictor of elections.
Whatever you think about Trump, 2016-2020 was in no way, shape or form comparable to the 30s under NSDAP Germany and to *insist* on making such comparisons ad nauseum is one of the reasons you were rebuked at the polls by the electorate.
It's also electrifyingly funny that Trump took the largest Jewish counties (e.g., Rockland, NY) -- those self-hating Jews must want to go back to the concentration camps. This is your brain on progressive logic.
I took this particular case as highlighting one way by which functioning liberal democracies slide into authoritarianism and sharply-shifted political and social norms, one hard-to-reverse step at a time, not all at once. I also think the direct comparisons to nazis are mostly not useful, but that’s not how I read this excerpt’s being posted.
Looks like more of the same antifa boilerplate but in the form of an incoherent postww2 ethnography by a confused leftist (whose sample was a total of ten people btw) and is exactly why your ideas were thoroughly smashed yesterday, no?
Have you read the book? It’s not trying to be an academic population-level study or anything, it’s accounts of and reflections on the reported experiences (and some verifiable—sometimes conflicting—facts surrounding those) of a few members of the Nazi party who were otherwise just ordinary people going about their lives, which is a perspective lost among focus on SS members or the Nazi political elite. A different book that was a statistical study might also be interesting, but could not accomplish the same things. It’d be a totally different book, not a better version of the same book.
> By the time we got to the news that at least two Supreme Court justices and very likely more are being bought, we collectively shrugged rather than making that the issue until they were out
It's happening to this day, too. Yesterday, "Oh, possibly Russian-originated bomb threats closing election stations? Sure, we'll talk about it briefly and move on." Elon Musk-funded PAC sending fake text messages from Kamala Harris saying that kids will be able to coordinate gender-affirming surgery while at school "outside of parental interference" and that she will be legalizing abortion upon delivery? "Oh, that might be illegal, maybe? Next story." are demoralizing in the amount of indifference they come with.
Citizens United was literally about citizens showing a film critical of a political candidate. It’s one of the purest examples of free political speech there is.
No Supreme Court justices are bought.
I share your concern about the lack of seriousness with which many seem to regard the Capitol riot, which is a black stain on our history.
> Citizens United was literally about citizens showing a film critical of a political candidate. It’s one of the purest examples of free political speech there is.
You should read fuller accounts, it’s a fair bit more complicated than that.
The part that made it so harmful, at any rate, was the court deciding without prompting from the plaintiffs to buck their normal “as narrow as possible and don’t make things major constitutional questions unless you have to” policy and widen the case to be about something it initially was not, with the result that campaign finance control at all and keeping foreign money at least kinda out of US politics became impossible.
> No Supreme Court justices are bought.
Uh. I dunno what to say. Yikes.
Pretend George Soros had been giving Sotomayor gifts amounting to huge sums of money over many, many years in ways that plainly violate rules for lower court judges, and that she’s “accidentally” not disclosed a lot of it.
These are the same noises that were made on the right prior to the election. As long as people are sufficiently mad about the status quo, the other party has a chance to take over.
I feel like that's a story HN and a lot of tech likes to tell itself, but the truth is that when push comes to shove they support candidates who are neither, but _are_ deeply right wing.
The actual lib-left side of tech evaporated. ACLU, EFF, even fedora-core atheists etc are a shell/joke of their former selves. The remaining ones (i.e. Stallman) back Bernie, Yang, or still buy into the green party.
I got mass downvoted earlier and a "talking to" from Dang in regards to me pointing out that a certain Ron Wyden having one bad vote about BDS/isreal isn't a good enough reason to throw the baby out with the bath water and turn against one of the only reliable techno-libertarians. This site is done with its purported liberalism.
I agree there are a lot of right wing, libertarian types, but I'm guessing just voting by the HN crowd would be a Harris landslide over Trump. For example, donations for Alphabet employees was supposedly 89% to democrats, 11% to republicans.
I mean considering the degree to which people on this site style themselves as intellectuals, it would be pretty astounding to me to hear that most of them voted for Trump this time around given his fairly disastrous economic agenda. Mostly tariffs—I don't really believe HN is that protectionist
There are certainly vocal and well spoken conservatives here, but by and large this site skews massively liberal. I mean just read this threads comments, ffs.
Candidate wins in a landslide election against someone who had not won any votes in a presidential campaign on her own merits ever and you call that game over for democracy?
Reagan was re-elected in the November 6 election in an electoral and popular
vote landslide, winning 49 states by the time the ballots were finished
counting on election night at 11:34 PM in Iowa. He won a record 525 electoral
votes total (of 538 possible), and received 58.8% of the popular vote
> Trump didn’t need to file frivolous lawsuits before federal courts. The Supreme Court wasn’t given a chance to throw the election his way in a redux of 2000’s Bush v. Gore. The false bomb threats to polling places that have been ascribed to Russian actors don’t appear to have had any measurable effect. There’s been no reporting that indicates that the promised hordes of MAGA-trained poll watchers blocked any Democratic voters from casting their ballots.
The candidate who was just voted into power is a convicted felon awaiting sentencing and also awaiting 2(?) other criminal trials which are now probably going to just disappear. It's objectively a failure of democracy.
They are, apparently, which is why it's a failure. He was also awaiting trial for interference in the previous election. The irony would be amusing if it weren't so seriously wrong.
>They are, apparently, which is why it's a failure.
The purpose of the criminal justice system is not be a cudgel with which to eliminate political opponents. The infamous "34 felonies" were from a state trial in New York; the state of New York does not get to arbitrarily deny the rest of the country their choice in president. Evidently the rest of the country does not consider these to be serious enough to disqualify him from holding office.
I'm aware the felonies were from New York. Despite that, he still made it on the ballot in New York, didn't he?
Do you not find it _insane_ that he was awaiting a federal trial to determine whether he was guilty of interference in the previous election, was allowed to run, won, and will now make that trial just disappear?
I agree that it could be abused by an authoritarian to silence political rivals. But there are plenty of laws that can and already are abused, including to prevent justice from being served. For example, the several people close to Trump that were pardoned by him right before he left his 1st term.
I mean, he'd be ineligible to join the military, but can run it. He'd fail a security clearance, but can hand them out. Many states forbid felons from even voting.
"You can be president from a jail cell" is likely to be a "well that wouldn't happen" oversight on the Founding Fathers' plate, not an intentional design.
dude the founding fathers were all british subjects who committed an act of high treason against the crown. They were well aware that criminal prosecutions can be politicized and applied selectively. If somebody can commit a felony and still get voted in by more than half the country that reflects poorly on the criminal justice system not the election.
> dude the founding fathers were all british subjects who committed an act of high treason against the crown
Because they objected to a powerful, unaccountable ruler with absolute immunity to the law.
> They were well aware that criminal prosecutions can be politicized and applied selectively.
And that's why they set up checks and balances, three branches of government, the Bill of Rights, etc. instead of a monarch. Asserting this means they wanted a monarch is... odd.
> If somebody can commit a felony and still get voted in by more than half the country that reflects poorly on the criminal justice system not the election.
I mean, yeah - the criminal justice system is clearly flawed here, as he's fundamentally getting away with the crimes. Garland fucked up by waiting too long; a judge Trump appointed successfully delayed the most serious criminal proceedings until they became meaningless, etc.
The election reflects poorly on the people. Which wouldn't have come as a big surprise to the Founding Fathers, who didn't really trust the people all that much - that's why we have the electoral college, after all.
To use an example from history, Hitler was convicted and served prison time for attempting a coup. He was able to use the trial to spread his ideas. He rose back to power over the next several years due to his and the Nazi Party's popularity, and became Chancellor. I'm no historian but, logically, if he was convicted of treason, he should never have been allowed to hold any position in the German government ever again, regardless of how popular he was.
- vote counting shall be stopped at a particular time. Officials in charge of the mechanics of democracy need to be pressured explicitly about this.
- the peaceful transition of power needs to be interrupted
- expectations held together by norms hold no value. The very tradition of democracy is optional.
It might be irrational to spend effort voting —engaging in democracy— to elevate someone so skeptical of it. And your newspaper and even in this thread people are extremely polite about those doing so.
He generates doubt around the election result "if I lost, it is because of fraud" and provoked a group of people to attempt the overturn the previous election. Plus more subtle things like election rule changes that reduce democracy in the background.
I personally came to this opinion when he declared previous elections rigged without any evidence. The election institute and its fairness is a cornerstone myth of a democracy, you cannot destroy it without ruining the democracy. If the election institute is corrupted there is no way to have a legitimate president. You can have only tyrants and dictators after that. It means that you are not anti-democratic you can oppose the election institute only if you know it is corrupt. But Trump didn't know, I'm sure he knew that the elections were not rigged, and yet he attacked the elections.
I was not sure, because I had a hypothesis that Trump is just stupid and do not understand what he is doing. But before the current elections he talked a lot how he is going to abuse power to persecute political opponents, or just any opponents, if we believe his words, he is going to persecute everyone he doesn't like.
You know that Hitler was literally voted into power, right?
I am NOT saying Trump is literally Hitler, but the idea that democratic vote can't have un-democratic outcome in the long run is simply false.
It can, and history showed us that more then once
>What do you call being the majority party, winning referendums, etc?
Nazi's were not the majority party when Hitler ran for president, they were the largest party, but not majority. They weren't even a majority even when Hitler was appointed (not voted) chancellor by Paul von Hindenburg, the man who won the presidential election. There were a few more steps before he acquired absolute power, but none of them involved voting. It's interesting, read the article.
Well the largest party (as per HN rules please "use the best form of the argument", no need to nitpick), and not by a small margin -- at least 10% over the 2nd largest. And you'll still argue he did not "win" elections?
(You could not "vote" a chancellor. In a lot of perfectly valid democracies, the PM position is always appointed, never directly voted, usually from the larger party or the at least the candidate most likely to pass a (constructive) motion of no confidence. So he was elected legally per the correct democratic process. Cleanly/Fairly -- that's another question. But would you really be surprised Hitler could win elections? He had pretty ridiculously good reputation in some circles. He would have likely polled pretty well even in the US.).
>And you'll still argue he did not "win" elections?
The Nazi party won elections, Hitler did not.
>>You know that Hitler was literally voted into power, right?
He was not. He lost the presidential election in 1932. He forcefully took the presidency after the Reichstag fire. He was appointed chancellor because the Nazi party won elections. He lost his. I can see where you think it is splitting hairs, but you specifically named Hitler and not the Nazi party. That might not have been what you meant to say, but it's what you said that I was refuting.
Also, Hindenburg didn't have to appoint Hitler, he could have chosen another from the Nazi party. He certainly didn't want to appoint Hitler, but some backroom negotiations that he wasn't a part of ultimately led to Hitler's appointment.
>So he was elected legally per the correct democratic process.
This is like saying the SCOTUS is elected because the President that appointed them was elected. They are not, they are appointed. Hitler himself never won an election.
FWIW, here are the 1932 election results:
Hindeberg 53.05%
Hitler 36.77%
Other Guy 10.16%
This would be considered an absolute blowout. Please don't feel like I'm scolding you, I really enjoy historical conversations, so thanks for this one.
People really don’t understand interwar period Germany, and helpfully pluck out a narrative that suits their interests today. Treaty of Versailles and “dolchstoss” myth included.
Thank you for sharing the truth. It’s worth understanding why Hindenburg chose Hitler as Chancellor, too. Hitler was popular, and seen as a useful force that might be controlled by the conservative elements of the German political system. It didn’t work out that way.
There’s no contemporary analogue to Hitler today in American politics. There’s no significant paramilitary force, for one. No true populist — in spite of trump’s rhetoric his policies don’t qualify.
Ironically, the closest to fitting the mold might be Vance? Somebody unelected, young, brokered his own access to power in exchange for political support (via Elon, Thiel).
> Ironically, the closest to fitting the mold might be Vance? Somebody unelected, young, brokered his own access to power in exchange for political support (via Elon, Thiel).
Kamala Harris fits just as well: She was so unpopular in 2020 she dropped out before the primaries, then got picked for Vice-President. Then because Biden was in office, she again didn't get votes in the primary this year but instead was selected by the DNC when Biden dropped out.
> I can see where you think it is splitting hairs, but you specifically named Hitler and not the Nazi party.
Yes, I do consider this is splitting hairs. First, yeah, I do not think explicitly making the separation between Hitler and the Nazi party makes any practical difference to the argument. Let me know if you can think of one.
Second, Hitler did get into power through democratic means -- definitely not the presidency, but he was made chancellor, which is, to the best of my knowledge, equivalent to a PM and therefore head of the executive. Don't move the goalpost and claim that "Hitler didn't get into power until he illegally made himself president", because he was into power before that; as much as you could within the limits of the constitution. They voted him into office and he was made chancellor through legal means. For the last 2/3 elections that can still be considered "somewhat" free, his party got the largest number of votes.
He won the elections, and legally speaking had every right to be put into power and made chancellor. Or at least to try until he was voted out by a no confidence or failing to pass laws. He had no right to become president, much less to become dictator.
> This is like saying the SCOTUS is elected because the President that appointed them was elected. They are not, they are appointed. Hitler himself never won an election.
In a lot of democratic countries, the PM-equivalent figure is NEVER directly elected. Would you call Italy, Spain, etc. non-democratic countries just because the PM is appointed by parliament instead of elected directly? The PM is the actual head of the government; the head of state (monarch/president) is a figurehead.
> FWIW, here are the 1932 election results:
_Presidential_ election. President is much less important than you think if you see this from a US-centric view, because the actual head of government is the chancellor! The secretaries/ministers are appointed from the majority parties in parliament, not arbitrarily by the president as in the US. This is still pretty common in many European democracies...
And in all parliament elections, Hitler's party won with a comfortable margin:
1932 July elections : Nazis 230 seats (out of 608) ; next party 133. Almost 2x distance. Hitler's coalition : 267 seats and 43% of vote. Won by simple majority.
1932 November elections (arguably last fair elections in Germany) Nazis 196 seats ; next party 120. In coalition: 247, 42% of vote. Simple majority.
1933 March (definitely last free elections in Germany): Nazis 288 seats; next party 120. Coalition: 340, ~52%, absolute majority .
There's no other way to put this, even if you ignore 1933 results: the Nazis _and Hitler_ were put into power by the (simple) majority of the population. If they had lost even in % of votes to a second party, or something to the effect, then I would also argue that voters didn't put Hitler into power. But as it is...
And you can't really argue that someone could be voting for the Nazis (or coalition parties) without knowing you'd be voting for Hitler, considering how personalistic they were by 1932.
> Please don't feel like I'm scolding you, I really enjoy historical conversations, so thanks for this one.
This has been discussed ad-nauseum, even on wikipedia...
Disclaimer: I already mentioned that results of an election when there is literal vote coercion going on (intimidation, control of the press, etc.) cannot be considered fair. This doesn't negate the fact that he did win elections, and therefore this is still a valid lesson for generations to come.
I think that the journey Hitler undertook in 1924 is actually more useful as a comparison to Trump's story... The media and courts and the incumbent's/MSM's expectations verses the reality of how that would land with the volk. A tangent from the parent but they did say they enjoy historical conversations :D
That's the problem with this statement: Trump is not Hitler and any hypothetical "undemocratic outcomes" aren't apparent in the extreme short term. He hasn't run on a platform of eliminating democracy and there isn't any indication at this point that he will.
I've not been as immersed in the presidential race, but hasn't he explicitly said he wants to be a dictator, this is the last vote you will need, we should stop so and so from voting and so on? Like, right out of his mouth? How is that not an undemocratic platform?
The full quote was that he was going to be a dictator but only on the first day. It's probably one of the dumbest things he's ever said, but the fact that he put a limit on his own supposed dictatorship contradicts him being a dictator. At any rate, while I'm not a fan of what he said, he definitely did not preclude the continuation of American democracy even if interpreted in the most literal possible way.
> this is the last vote you will need
He said that you [the people at his rally] aren't going to need to vote anymore because hes going to accomplish all his goals this time. Not that there won't be a vote or that his supporters won't be allowed to vote. They definitely won't be allowed to vote for him since he'll be at up against the term limit.
> we should stop so and so from voting and so on
This one I've never even heard before outside of him claiming that his opponents want to let non citizens vote
I believe people who claim he will "end democracy" do not believe he will literally put an end to elections. Many places widely considered "undemocratic" also have elections.
> They definitely won't be allowed to vote for him since he'll be at up against the term limit.
I'm sure if Trump were younger and up against term limits, he (and his party) would simply ignore them or change the rules. That's the kind of democracy-ending actions that could easily happen. Lucky for us, I think he's too old for this particular problem.
You are going with the assumption that the election wasn't stolen. If you are correct then Trumo would be taking an anti-democratic position. If the people's will was genuinely to elect him and the election was actually stolen then he would be taking the democratic position.
Not quite. If he actually believes that the election was stolen, whether or not it was, it would be a democratic position. He would be right or wrong, but that doesn't change that his goal would be to protect democracy.
If he actually believes the election was not stolen, whether or not it was, but act as if it was stolen, it would be un-democratic position, because he would, is his perceived reality, try to subvert a democratic process.
People can adapt their beliefs to be convenient to them. In fact, people's beliefs usually correspond to whatever is most convenient. If he should have known that the election was not stolen, then claiming otherwise would be undemocratic, regardless of his true beliefs (which are unknowable anyways).
That's out of context. He was trying to reach people who just don't vote in general, telling them they only needed to bother this one time and he'll fix their problems (costs, economy, etc) so well they can go back to not bothering to vote.
This stuff was not merely spicy words, it was dangerous. Democracy runs on norms and good people, and is precious and hard won. Trump being in power is a risk.
He did not say that [1]. I can't decide whether people keep misrepresenting his statements intentionally, or there's some psychological process in play that prevents them from parsing his speech. He is a terrible communicator after all.
He speaks backwards and from the inside out of sentences. Changes subject mid sentence. Etc.
I think normal people think that is OK but academics thinks it sounds stupid.
In the beginning I believe he got a boost from journalists feeling smart by nitpicking that to manufacture some "gotcha". He is way to easy to misquote to resist the temptation.
What about when he said he wanted to be dictator so people wouldn’t have to vote anymore? And when he made himself above the law with MAGA court justices? Or talked about a firing squad for his opponents and opening fire on peaceful protestors? Or when he attempted a violent coup on the White House? Or when he praised Hitler and asked for generals like Hitlers that will do anything he says without question? Or when he praised Putin, Kim Jun Un, and other the dictators of the world?
But in the end he didn't end Democracy, he let the democratic procedures take place, a fascist wouldn't do that.
> He literally tried to overthrow the election 4 years ago
Not openly, the people who went to the white house weren't under Trumps command. He argued against the election result using the proper tools of the democracy, you are allowed to do that.
I'm not sure why worry now when we already know he handed over the power once. Maybe it wasn't willingly but he will be forced to step down in 4 years as well.
The call to Brad Raffensperger asking him to "find" votes has been public for years. I'm in disbelief that anyone could listen to that conversation and conclude it was anything but an attempt to steal the election.
Trying to cheat a few votes isn't more fascist than gerrymandering, it is corrupt but it isn't fascism.
If he had rigged the whole election I'd say it is fascism, but rigging a whole election is on such a different scale and planning and conspiracy level that it isn't the same thing, he didn't even try to rig the election. If he tried to rig it then it wouldn't be one such call, it would be hundreds with many accomplices.
This is some pretty hardcore rationalization even by modern standards. Trying to "cheat a few (10s of thousands of votes so you win a swing state)" is called trying to steal an election.
but rigging a whole election is on such a different scale and planning and conspiracy level that it isn't the same thing, he didn't even try to rig the election.
He literally did from many different angles. Asking for changed vote counts, fake electors, 60 court cases with no evidence, planning violence to stop the certification of the election.
How do you square what you are saying with these facts?
Trump also made calls to officials in other swing states he lost attempting to change the result. They weren't as public and damning, but had several of them been successful after all was said and done, it would have rigged the whole election.
> he let the democratic procedures take place, a fascist wouldn't do that.
He did so because he had no other choice. Mike Pence, of all people, rescued democracy. If it hadn't been for him, Donald Trump would not accepted the transfer of power.
And this is what the difference boils down to. You and I both know that Trump would have declared himself the winner no matter what the vote count had been. And we also both know that Harris is going to concede to Trump because the vote count says so.
> Again, You know Hitler literally tried a coup, failed and then switched to 'democratic' means?
Hitler never left the seat of power once he got it. Trump did. They are not the same. Hitler did a coup to try to get power, he failed at that, Trump already succeeded grabbing power (he got elected) and then left it.
It's probably not that, but (separately) both the Democratic Party and democracy for the same reason: if Republicans successfully engineer (what's effectively) a one-party state.
Regardless if the dems still exist in name or not, both them and democracy are done.
Highly unlikely. The next Governor of my state is likely that person who stood up to Trumps fraudulent voting claims. We will see if the Democrats can find a decent candidate but I doubt it. They used the same person twice with the same results.
If the democrats were interested in winning they would have had a few options this election. The party seems to have other priorities that they always prioritize over winning though, and that hasn't worked out well for them.
They were interested in winning and I think they made decent moves. Dumping Biden amounted to huge increases in their win probability. A stronger candidate could have bolstered that further but Harris ran a decent campaign. The broader state of the economy and border put them on the back foot so I think they would have struggled with most candidates. Perhaps an outsider similar to Bernie’s 2016 campaign would have had the best shot.
If they really wanted to win they never would have had Biden on the ticket. At a minimum they would have allowed a primary rather then forcing RFK out of the party and keeping any other potentials off the stage.
In my opinion Biden was clearly slipping 18-24 months ago. But even if that's wrong, the best way to show the country Biden was fit for another term and energize the party would have been putting him on stage to debate with other democratic leaders.
I don't personally think she ran a decent campaign. It was very standard and bland talk of unity and other hot air -just the stuff you expect politicians to say when trying to get elected, nothing to really build trust in her. She needed to make Trump look dumb, dishonest and inept by comparison. Talking to voters as if they're smarter might have helped, but I don't really know.
Governors can be killed by executive order. It’s an official action so under the new Supreme Court ruling the President can’t be prosecuted. Anyone who carries out the order can be pardoned. The courts can of course reverse the executive order, but not resurrect a man so the case would be moot.
This is a man who has talked about shooting political opponents on the campaign trail, I’d be astonished if he doesn’t follow through if there will be no consequences.
The sequence of event presented by the poster you are responding to is indeed a joke in 2024. Can you however not see a future where it becomes a practical possibility?
> Looking beyond the fate of this particular prosecution, the long-term consequences of today’s decision are stark. The Court effectively creates a law-free zone around the President, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the Founding. This new official-acts immunity now “lies about like a loaded weapon” for any President that wishes to place his own interests, his own political survival, or his own financial gain, above the interests of the Nation. Korematsu v. United States, 323 U. S. 214, 246 (1944) (Jackson, J., dissenting). The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.
Then the claim that the President can in their official capacity assassinate others with impunity and protection from prosecution is no lie.
Definitely. This will involve a tariff regime explicitly disadvantaging the ports in coastal blue states. Certain bureaucratic centers will be moved, the kinds of things a real estate developer can follow in a short meeting.
The side effects of this will both hurt his base, and offer opportunities for smart people. For example, careless tariffs can raise the cost of everything at Walmart by 60% with Amazon not far behind. You know this and I know this.
Tariffs also demonstrate to domestic companies that they don’t need to innovate. The material and labor to innovate will be cheaper overseas. You know this and I know this.
That money and power doesn’t seem to be willing to move towards centrists policies. And there is a lot of power in the president, considering how unstable the world is the most likely scenario now is further consolidation of that power. And Russia or Israel are good examples, if anyone wants to see what happens after the power gets consolidated.
This is all because of Reagan. Removal of the fairness doctrine and lowering of the highest tax rate from 70% to 50% to 28%. Now, we live in an oligarchy full stop. All the "free press" is owned by billionaires who crave tax cuts and election ad money more than "truth". (Look at the LATimes and WaPost refusing to endorse a candidate at the sole direction of their owner.) The oligarchs soon realized that you don't have to buy the country, just 10 people to control 2 of the branches of government. We really need to move the Supreme Court to 13 that are elected by popular vote in the 13 districts. We elect the heads of the other 2 branches of government, why not the judiciary?
The greatest trick the rich ever pulled was convincing the middle class that poor people are the cause of all the problems in their life.
If this is somehow the end of democracy here, it wasn't Trump's election that killed it. One election alone (or two if you believe both terms were the cause) couldn't likely kill an otherwise healthy democracy. Democracy would have been dead for my of my lifetime if this is the moment it becomes clear that its gone.
That said, I very much dislike Trump and would rather have an empty oval office (arguably we have that already), but I think his threat to democracy has been wildly overblown. Unless a rogue president throws out the book entirely, Congress would have to be the ones to actually get rid of most of our democratic processes and systems.
I'd point back to at least 2000 and the Supreme Court stopping the count in Florida, but maybe back to when we sabotaged the Iran hostage deal so Carter couldn't have a win
Sure, both are good examples of democracy being attacked. More broadly, I'd point to all the lies the public is fed to "nudge" us in whatever direction the political parties and lobbyists want. Its not much of a democracy if voters are asked to vote based on massive piles of bad information.
The second you have a president willing to mobilize the most advanced military in the history of the world against its own populace there's no chance of realistically resisting.
I have absolutely no expectation that Trump will actually order the military on the US populace, but even if he tried it matters whether the military would follow such an order. It could always happen, that's part of the reason I wish our federal government was drastically reduced and our standing military disbanded, but I simply can't think so little of our troops that they would actually do it.
That said, if somehow that did happen one day I fully expect to die by their gun. At that point that army becomes an invading force and I'd feel like I have no choice but to fight.
I really hope you are right about that. I worry because I listened to what he said...and he said he wants to use the military against the "enemy from within, and named specific political opponents and mentioned media figures.
I tend to believe him when he says that's what he wants to do. But you are right, one would hope the military would refuse such an unconstitutional order.
I see this claim often but (from my position as an outsider, not American) it doesn't look very plausible: Trump was already president once and that didn't happen, why would it happen now?
It did begin then. The Supreme Court of the US is since then conservative and will now probably remain so for many years to come.
Further, he needed the second term then, so he couldn't go all crazy as he needed the people to vote for him once more. Now he doesn't have that limitation any more.
Things take time. Erosion of trust and the creation of political apathy in the populace takes time. Also, as has been said, he did try things but was continuously pushed back on by the actual politicians he put in his cabinet. He's also 8 years more elderly and emboldened. His cult of personality has essentially stabilized into an American institution. He's also had an entire administration to place judges and pass legislation that favors his power plays. In general it seems like you're asking, why might it take more than 4 years to topple a democracy, which i think has an obvious answer, democracy doesn't want to be toppled.
Again, I'm not arguing he's gonna go full dictator, but i think it's a lot more likely this time around than last time.
Trump has stated that his biggest regret from his term is that the people he appointed to various positions, while quite competent and/or experienced, would push back on ideas or plans he proposed. In other words, they weren't loyal.
The difference between this term and his previous is going to be a much stronger focus on making any position he can appoint be one that doesn't tell him no. And it looks like many of the positions he can't (the senate and likely the house) are going that way too. That, to me, makes him represent a meaningfully larger threat to the balance of power in the US than his previous term.
When Trump took power in 2016 there wasn't much of a plan because nobody expected it. Today Trump's backers have Project 2025 ready which has a specific plan to replace anyone who might be able to slow things down in the civil service, armed forces, justice department, etc... Not to mention the immunity doctrine that the administration now has from its handpicked supreme court.
In theory there are things Biden could still do right now to help preserve these institutions but I doesn't look like he will, or even like he has the mental capacity and empathy to be motivated to do so.
Because Trump selected career Republicans who still followed the Constitution and law for his cabinet.
This time around: 1. He allowed an insurrection and was voted in anyway, so his extremist followers are emboldened. 2. He surrounded himself with yes-men.
He's significantly more unhinged than he was 4 years ago, and even more obsessed with personal loyalty than he was before.
And in general this sort of thing doesn't happen overnight; there's a process to things. It's like the old quip on how someone becomes bankrupt: "very gradually, and then suddenly all at once".
I don't know what will happen, but it's a dangerous path to walk. Maybe the next four years will be sort-of okay-ish, but what about the state of things in 10 or 20 years?
In large part, democracies work because we all believe it should work, and once that belief goes out the window for a critical mass of people then you're playing with fire.
The GOP in general has been engaged in scorched earth politics since Obama: all that matters is a win today and doesn't matter what conventions or institutions get damaged in the process. A healthy democracy would have disqualified Trump from running again in 2020. It would not play highly nihilistic power games with the supreme court. etc. etc.
But it isn't wrong, is it? Democracy elected Hitler, Hitler ended democracy in Germany. I'm not saying that is going to happen here, but your flippant comeback to a valid point is not a rebuttal.
I wish people didn't use the Hitler comparison because it always derails discussion (almost everyone is better than Hitler, even Trump). There are however enough other cases throughout history of people being elected and then becoming dictators.
It is the exact right comparison though. Conservatives failed to maintain power on their ideals. The weak party clings to power, and propels a populist into power. He scapegoats immigrants, and liberal ideas for the general malaise. The only saving grace is that he is old, and not genocidal.
People wouldn't be as familiar with the outcome if we were to discuss those other dictators. I'm certainly unaware of their parallels.
Guy said he'd be dictator on day one and that sometimes it's okay to suspend the constitution. Some of us are concerned about what things he said might be true.
It was clearly a joke, as in taking the first day of office to clean up the perceived mistakes of his predecessor. Do you know any dictators who only planned to rule for one day?
And also, are you still confused why Americans wholeheartedly rejected this BS?
How are you so confident that it is a joke? I'm not that confused about why people give him a pass on stuff like this, but that doesn't mean I like it.
Why are you so sure there will be no pandemic this time? I think mismanagement of Trump's CDC was a big contributing factor to the last one. Compare, e.g. how Obama's CDC successfully fought ebola.
“Not worried about Trumpism” is a near-100% accurate indicator of extreme ignorance of authoritarian regimes and of the American political system, unfortunately.
> near-100% accurate indicator of extreme ignorance of authoritarian regimes
extreme ignorance of authoritarian regime is particularly visible among people who think that things happen like in movies with singular figures like Darth Vader showing up and suddenly grabbing power out of some kind of ether.
