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.
Second Amendment.
The odds aren’t in our favor.
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That’s a non sequitur though, unless you’re suggesting a tyrant would nuke the population he wanted to rule.
The nuke is a bad example of the sheer power of the modern American military. It’s also a bit outdated. That legal mechanism was drafted when many other modern weapons and tactics were not even dreamed of. Just a couple days ago the US military announced its strongest armor yet.
But I agree: your assault rifle may save you from others with an assault rifle, but it won’t do shit if the military comes for you.
Normally, it would be the electoral system that would act as the check. But otherwise, it doesn’t put any other limits based on political belief and affiliation (other than having allegiances to other political powers). If the majority wanted to elect someone who wishes to abolish the democratic election system, then that is what they will get.
That’s possibly for the better. Being able to bar given political alignments or affiliation from office would either need to be so specific so as to be useless (a modern nazi typically has little directly to do with the original), or be broad enough that it’d be a dangerous thing, since it could be used in either direction.
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.
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.
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.
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.
… 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.
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The mechanism is impeachment. It’s broken because of polarization.
Really because the rest of us have been watching you be wildly volatile for years now.
The country just elected this guy knowing that this is what he would do. That’s democracy.
Efficient propaganda is not democracy
I’ll bite: What is democracy to you?
But gullible people voting or not certainly is.
And knowing that he’s a convicted felon. And twice impeached. And almost certainly a rapist. And a successful conman.
Democracy is when the people can remove anyone in office from office. American democracy is saying bribes are lobbying.
No democracy is perfect.
America’s is less perfect than many.
That said, Trump won the popular vote.
2A
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.
The Constitution assumes the people through the ballot box or through protest would clean up any issues like that
we have systems for putting people like him in jail but we just didn’t want to do it
I’m told three marked bullets work wonders.
It has impeachment. The list of reasons for impeachment are (quite possibly intentionally) vague. But it has to be done through Congress.
And when the nazi controls Congress you know how far that’ll go.
You mean for the guy who was already impeached twice… And still voted for to be president?
The problem is he won the election.
The vote is the final check and balance.
Voters are either sympatico or stupid.
The problem is also that the Republican party is a fascist party, so the other check, impeachment, is thoroughly useless.
Fifth columnists love FPTP. It minimises their workload.
Ironically, these are the times the electoral college was supposed to avoid. Also denounced political parties as corrupting. Still likely to have been coopted by now, but the design was to combat lack of education, lack of information, and/or propaganda.
If you have only one party on the ballot and it’s a fascist party, you don’t really have a democratic choice do you? You can either vote for fascism or not vote for it.
If you have a fascist party on the ballet In an ONLY TWO partys political system, you don’t really have a democratic choice do you? You can either vote for fascism or not vote for it.
And that’s the problem with the US election system. In basically any other developed democracy, there are ways to call a new special election. The four years are often the max between elections, not the minimum.
If a new leader proves unpopular, you toss them out and install a new one.
But Trump hasn’t proven unpopular; that’s why he won reelection. If the ruling party has a majority and the PM has their party’s support, nothing would happen in most other systems either.
The popularity of both of the imperial genocidal candidates is the result of centuries of conditioning and the collapse of the education system and free press. It’s a cyclical problem. We vote them in, they keep us stupid, we vote them in again.
The popularity of both of the imperial genocidal candidates is the result of centuries of conditioning and the collapse of the education system and free press. It’s a cyclical problem. We vote them in, they keep us stupid, we vote them in again.
Didn’t say he was. Just saying if he did such crazy things that even the crazies drop out, he could be removed. That’s extremely hard in the US. You’re basically stuck with the moron for four years.
In theory, if he went so far over the line that he became very unpopular, then Congress members would fear for their reelection chances if they didn’t publicly break with him. But with him attacking democracy itself, Congress may be more afraid of him than they are of voters. It’s a deeply troubling time.
