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.
Depends how you define “instruments”. For example, there was a recent survey that we have something like 500 million, uh, instruments.
This is the result of ever-expanding executive power.
Couldn’t keep a:
34 count felon
Child rapist
Fraudster
Tax dodger
Grifter
Deadbeat
Wife beater
Philanderer
Classified documents thief
Obstructionist
Out of office… so why would they be able to keep a Nazi out?
2A
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 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.
Assuming American is a democracy is the first mistake. killing the native population, viewing non land owners, poc and many more as lessors. Let’s not forget who wrote the constitution.
What do you mean by “nazi”
It’s not illegal to be a nazi in the USA BUT it’s worth noting that Trump is more garden variety fascist than Nazi. He’s not looking to create the ubwrmensch.
Yet
Trump is the dancing monkey who will sign whatever they put in front of him. Plenty of people in his sister sphere are itching to kill.
None of which makes them nazis.
Smells like bitch in here
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.
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.
They mean ‘fascist’. Fascists are not automatically anti-semitic.
Impeachment, but that starts with a 218 vote in the House and the House is on his side.
So you actually need majority to PREVENT the collapse of democracy, and if you don’t have it, you’re fucked? How the fuck did this country even manage not to succumb into dictatorship for such a long time?
It has been under corporate dictatorship for over a century.
^ this.
The president isn’t in charge. He’s existing within boundaries created by the wealthy.
The ruling class was able to get along well enough up until the US Civil War, at which point the slavers decided they were willing to tear the country apart to keep on slaving. I include this because the Nazis were inspired by Jim Crow and how we did things over here. Fascism started bubbling up in the early 20th century because industrialization and capitalism polluted everything and made people work awful hours and all that, and liberalism and conservatism hadn’t fixed it. There was a serious coup attempt forming in the early 30s called the Business Plot, but they went to a war hero Marine general who told them to fuck off and told the federal government about it.
At least in the US, we’re in this situation now because authoritarians have been working toward it since the 60s (the Powell Memo was written in 1971 I think) and they’ve taken advantage of how terribly the Constitution is written, along with consolidation of wealth and stoking backlash to all the civil rights movements to get people to back them. The worst part is that it’s a feedback loop: since Reagan took power, Republicans campaign on “look how bad the government is!” and make the government worse once they’re in office, which feeds their cause.
tl;dr capitalism makes living conditions terrible, people abandon liberalism and conservatism for socialism/communism/etc and fascism, liberals don’t want much to change, fascism lives or dies based on how much conservatives sell out to/ally with them. The fact that we’re doing this all again shows to me that liberalism is a dead ideology and capitalism is going to kill us if we don’t kill it first.
I mean imagine if you could impeach the president without a majority. That would be the death of democracy. Just to put things in perspective: The GOP democratically won both houses of Congress and the presidency and because of DNC incompetence also has the Supreme Court. Them being able to do whatever the fuck they want is, in a way, democracy working as intended. It’d be weirder (and much more undemocratic) if there was a way to remove a sitting president without the Supreme Court or Congress.
This only proves that two-party system is just an authoritarianism with rotation. There’s always a ruling majority and the winner takes all.
Things would be different with at least the third party. 2 out of 3 parties would agree that the party no.3 is a fucking malice and rule him out.
Third party would most likely make things better but there’s no guarantee it would help in the situation you’ve set up. If two of the parties are fine with an actual Nazi in the White House and between them they control over half the votes then we’re still in the same situation.
Two party system wasn’t in the constitution, its an emergent property of FPTP voting method. FPTP + Electoral College means we get this fucking bullshit.
TLDR: There’s no “two-party system”, that’s just the result of FPTP. Nuke the FPTP system, replace with Ranked-Choice ballot (and also delete the Electoral College, that shit is outdated AF).
Very much on the electoral college, it made some measure of sense when the electors would have to ride a horse from California to DC maybe but that died a century or so ago.
From a smart ass perspective though, I just want to point that the TLDR portion actually has more words than the block above it. 🙃
From a smart ass perspective though, I just want to point that the TLDR portion actually has more words than the block above it. 🙃
Lol I started to use “TLDR” as a replacement for “In Conclusion”, because the concluding paragraph is supposed to summarize what you wrote anyways, so those terms are interchangeable.
If they hadn’t capped the number of representatives at 435 over a hundred years ago, we wouldn’t be in the situation where a vote from Wyoming carries 3.7 times more weight than a vote from California. By my math, if the 435 cap was abolished, we would have 143 more electors generally sprinkled among the more populous states. I still agree that the EC is outdated, but it’s not even operating the way it was designed.
It’d be weirder (and much more undemocratic) if there was a way to remove a sitting president without the Supreme Court or Congress.
Turns out there is, in fact. It just doesn’t involve governmental process at all. You’re quite correct that it’s undemocratic. (See: Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy)
Well the country didn’t previously have a legion of mouth breathing retards screaming at the top of their lungs about micro-aggressions and declaring that the nation was illegitimate. I’d also question your metrics for deciding now that he’s an openly Nazi dictator, other than parroting what you hear from other
peoplesocial media accounts.Yes it had, and that legion even stormed the fucking capitol.
If people democratically voted to end democracy, what are we suppose to do?
People democratically sat on their asses and didn’t bother to fucking vote. More people abstained from voting than actually voted for either candidate. The real winner of the election was apathy. We deserve whatever fucked up outcome we get.
The rest of the world doesn’t deserve it…
Worse… The House makes the impeachment charge, that’s a 50% majority vote.
THEN it goes to the Senate for conviction where you need a 2/3rds majority to remove them. 67/100.
That’s the body which can’t do anything because they’re blocked by a 60 vote super majority to over-ride A filibuster.
So you get 218 in the House, goes to the Senate, needs 60 votes to end debate and proceed with charges, then 67 votes to convict and remove.
Trump’s first impeachment got 48 and 47 votes.
His second was 57 votes.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_impeachment_trial_of_Donald_Trump
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_impeachment_of_Donald_Trump
If he had been convicted, he would have been inelligible to run in '24.
The founders probably imagined no self respecting person, oligarch or otherwise, would want to live under authoritarian rule.
Turns out the 21st century bourgeois is full of pussy ass bitches.
They never could have imagined our modern society at all. The amount of power and influence held by just a handful of private citizens couldn’t have been accounted for in the 18th century.
I’m just speaking from a matter of principle. They don’t have to know the conditions to conclude living under a kings rule in any condition is unappealing.
If enough people in a democracy decide that they want a dictatorship instead, then there is no stopping it, because rules don’t matter at this point. The trick is to don’t let it get this far. Tough shit for the US, though.
The USA has had a literal Nazi party since the 50’s. If they let George Lincoln Rockwell run for president while calling himself a nazi why would they do anything?
Maybe there’s an assumption that it’s not 1950, it’s 75 years later now. But if people don’t really know their history, they are doomed to repeat it. As an American, I feel that the average ordinary citizen is not very educated in history. And no wonder, how we treat the education system in this country.
But who will wield these instruments? It’d be more relevant if he made an effort to hide his nature before the election.
Right now the majority voted fascism with open eyes.
The army or the police should immediately jump in and arrest Elon after the second salute, when it became obvious the guy knew what he was doing. And yet he saluted 3 times and half the country is extremely enthusiastic about that.
I thought it was twice? I mean, that doesn’t detract from your point, and I don’t even disagree. I just want to make sure the details are set straight.
I saw a full clip on reddit. First time was just as bad, because he did it spontaneously, with no “throwing hearts”. He just heiled out of nowhere.
America doesn’t have a law forbidding the Nazi salute. It’d be against the first amendment.
The right to free speech is faulty if there are no repercussions from breaking the law.
Again, the first amendment protects the right to free speech and association; as far as American law is concerned, Elon didn’t break any laws.
Sure, but that’s not what I’m saying. You said that forbidding a Nazi salute would be against the first amendment. I’m only saying that IF Nazi symbols were to be outlawed then the freedom of speech should not equal to freedom from breaking the law.
IF Nazi symbols were to be outlawed then the freedom of speech should not equal to freedom from breaking the law.
It does, though, because such a law would be struck down as unconstitutional. The First Amendment doesn’t just protect lawful speech; it protects all speech and the American government just barely carved out an exception for inciting violence. These amendments are part of the constitution, which stands above and restricts the rest of American law. If you made a law saying that Nazi symbols were illegal, your law would (at least theoretically) be illegal and struck down in court and people would retain the freedom to use Nazi symbols. You might take issue with that, but if only legal speech was allowed then… the government could just make any speech it doesn’t like illegal.
You talk about amendments as if they couldn’t be amended.
This isn’t Germany where they can just arrest nazis. First amendment (unfortunately) also apply to hate speech. 🤷♂️
… and half the country is extremely enthusiastic about that.
There’s the reason nothing is done about it. It’s probably not actually half, but enough people didn’t speak up early enough, and so this has become the loudest voice in the room. Unless, and until that changes, the whole world is in for a rough ride.
You’re calling for military generals to have the power to remove the government? Effectively a military dictatorship?
That seems unwise.
Elon isn’t a government official, there would be nothing unwise about arresting him for things most people would get arrested or at least questioned by the police for.
The mechanism is impeachment. It’s broken because of polarization.
