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edited 11th Oct '14 3:17:52 PM by MarqFJA
I just think democracy is far too entrenched in the US for Trump to stop it, he has a lot of opposition and more and more are turning against him.
Just another day in the life of Jimmy Nutrin
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Trump isn't going to do it, if he were more competent he could weaken our democratic institutions for an actually competent person to come and take over (the Putin to his Yeltsin) but at this rate we could see a Democratic wave in 2018 that takes the house and then a Democratic Presidency in 2020. The point I'm trying to make is that Trump isn't the person who's going to help turn the US away from Liberal Democracy.
I think representative democracy could do with a refresh, but I can only speak for the legislations I know best which is the UK, maybe the US.
My fear is that most legislatures are too invested in the day to day point scoring of political punditry and 24hr news. To use a metaphor, I would describe that as fast food politics. It feels good to eat it, doesn't take a lot of effort and is always available. But if you do eat nothing but fast food it is going to kill you. To be healthy, you do need to eat meals that don't taste as nice, take longer to prepare (with fresh ingredients) and perhaps do some exercise on the side. In political terms this would be confronting big issues, proposing solutions and owning the consequences.
The classic example here is Brexit. Firstly, the Brexit vote started life purely as a means for David Cameron to deal with internal party politics. It was never meant to be a huge constitutional overhaul. Secondly, we've seen that the British public were woefully unqualified to make this decision. Leaving the EU is a complex issue that needed to be debated and deliberated on by people who had the time, ability and authority to do so. In other words, it was the perfect issue for Parliament to decide. Instead they abrogated that responsibility by calling for a referendum. As a direct consequence of that action we now have a Parliament which is under the threat of being made irrelevant as the Government seeks to pass a bill which will literally give them the powers to change laws without the involvement of Parliament.
A procrastination in of itself
I don't think Trump will, but it's not an insane possibility, what's to stop the new FBI director and the media intervening in 2018 to swing the midterms to a bunch of Russia backed Republicans?
I don't think it will happen, but saying "it can't happen here" is just tempting fate at this point.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Figure of Hourai
It's particularly stupid for them to be trying to pass a bill that allows them to totally bypass parliament...
Because the entire way parliament works means that a vote can be called at any time to say "nope".
Avatar Source
A procrastination in of itself
If a year and a half ago someone had suggested to me that elements within the FBI would blackmail the FBI director into intervening to throw a presidential election to a candidate that the director has good reason to think was compramised by a hostile government, I'd have said that that was insane and that the public would never accept it, it would be a bridge to far.
Yet here we are.
We don't know what a bridge to far is until it's crossed and people stand up in real numbers and force. The elements within the FBI that pushed comedy to sabotage Clinton are still there, we have to be ready for the possibility that they try and get the new director to open investigations in democrat candidates come 2018.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Yes, Parliament could reassert it's authority at anytime. But 15 months following the vote it is still choosing to be led by the outcome of a non-binding referendum that was decided on a 52-48 point margin.
But this is just an example of a legislature failing to tackle the big issues through reasoned and consequential debate. So ignoring the technicalities of my example, what do you think about my view on where representative democracy has been going wrong of late?
Figure of Hourai
I was simply saying how meaningless a bill to enable bypassing parliament is even if the thing does get passed. It's honestly worthless; anything that would trigger backbench dissent is still going to do so.
Avatar Source
A procrastination in of itself
Sure but it helps avoid information getting out that causes a back bench rebellion.
If every repeal has to be voted on indevidualy than each MP will come under pressure each time, while if they're just repealed on the low down by the government than M Ps have political cover (they can claim they didn't know) and can be kept in the dark (they could genuinely not know).
It's means that the government has a lot less fights to have, because it can remove laws and not have anyone notice.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
A peculiarity I noticed while reading Left-libertarian blogs and literature:
They come from the same fundamental place as your typical Bakunite Anarchist. They distrust government and unjustified authority.
However, I know several Anarchists and they have no problem voting Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn. These are men who undoubtedly want to expand the State and make it even more powerful.
Libertarians despise "big government" Democrats because, again, they are suspicious of all authority and the monopoly on force.
Just never understood why this was.
Getting back to the original question however is the view that this is a mess of Parliament's own making.
Membership of the EU was not an issue that should have been decided by a referendum. Parliament abdicated that responsibility and as a response have found themselves hamstrung ever since.
And so getting back to the question, to me this is symptomatic of the failures of democratic institutions around the world. Short term partly management issues take priority in a 24hr news media landscape. Rogue members of the legislature can hijack parliamentary proceedings for their own personal advancement: I would place Ted Cruz and his orchestration of the government shutdown here. Serious debate based on fact and reasoned argument, with long-term decisions made and acted upon by all parties is absent in today's politics.
It is this where I feel that politics needs a reboot. The media needs to show restraint, to avoid political reporting devolving into "he said she said", to avoid gossipy stories based on inside connections and personality politics and to avoid the insistence on treating both sides as equally valid when they are not. At the same time politics needs to stop rewarding those that can play the media at their own game. To stop rewarding the narcissist who just revels in the attention - see Boris Johnson and Trump. To reward competence as opposed to who can simply promise the most in the most elegant fashion.
I don't know. I am probably being nostalgic for a past that was in its own way just as bad as things are now. I am forgetting the one truth about all institutions, which is that institutions are comprised of people who are human and will make mistakes. I just know that things could and should be better, but the motivations and rewards in our current setup don't perform the way it is supposed to.
I would say that those people are projecting an ideal onto Sanders and Corbyn. So they are probably not looking too closely at their actual policy positions and that if either of them managed to actually get any executive power they would quickly be disappointed in their idols.
I would also say that most people don't mind big government per se, they just don't like it when it is against their interests. In Sanders and Corbyn they see a less coercive government not looking to fight wars (on drugs or otherwise); less likely to side with the police in a "law and order" posture and less likely to act to protect the comfortable and well off. The fact that Sanders and Corbyn would use a different form of coercion (in the form of higher taxes) will slip them by, probably because they are unlikely to be affected.
edited 17th Sep '17 8:41:26 AM by singularityshot
As I see it, not as if I know any better, but to me, wouldn't centrism be a mixture of everything good on liberal ideals and everything good on conservative ideals?
Figure of Hourai
Well, Clement Attlee was renowned for being incredibly boring, and given what he achieved... politics could certainly do with less style over substance.
use political terms to describe, not insult
That's the idealized version of centrism. In practice it can mean anything from "I support this specific mix of policies, some associated with the right and others with the left", or "I'm pretty much [fill this blank as relevant]-wing but disagree on [one controversial or unpopular policy]" to "Eh... I support doing a bit of A and a bit of B, since A is raising taxes and B is lowering them, I support raising them on even months and lowering them on odd months".
Note: I'm supposing that by "liberal" and "conservative" you are using the US definition (roughly everything left of center is liberal and roughly everything to the right is conservative), if you're using another definition please clarify.
1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV
It would be nice to be pragmatic in that sense. The problem comes from the fact that in order to be successful in politics you need to work together with others that share your views. You need to get people to trust you. Picking and choosing between both sides in this way isn't going to win you admiration for listening to both sides. It's more likely that it will lead to resentment as both sides remember the last time you went against them and will be unwilling to work with you in the future. Eventually your centre position will collapse as neither side trusts you anymore.
The only way to make it work for the long-term is to create a new party that has at it's core your ideology which is a fusion of the best of the left and the right as you define them. Obviously this is extremely difficult to achieve, but not impossible. The only problem is that you may find the political ground shift under your feet as you do so as the current parties react to your arrival.
edited 17th Sep '17 9:00:45 AM by singularityshot
@ singularityshot
Thank you. That all makes sense.
@ Centrism
This sums up Centrism. A lot of people nowadays see it as "Both Sidesism" and that is not tolerated in modern political discourse.
Of course I mainly hang out with Leftists who look upon Liberals with absolute scorn.
I'm probably some weird sort of Extreme Centrist in that I hold very "Far" views of both the Left and Right.
Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?
Diplomatic wrangling mars race for UNESCO’s top job
On Monday, the 58 members of UNESCO’s executive board embarked on a week-long voting process to pick a successor for outgoing Director-General Irina Bokova. The Bulgarian’s two successive four-year terms were marked by a plunge in funding after the controversial inclusion of Palestine as a member state in 2011, which prompted both the United States and Israel to halt their contributions. Whoever succeeds Bokova will not only face the daunting task of clawing back those funds. He or she will also have to reconcile members whose relations have been badly strained by geopolitical tensions and rivalries.
When asked what qualities her successor would most need, Bokova said: “The ability to raise funds and unite [members]"...
Political and financial hijacking
Seven countries – France, China, Vietnam, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Qatar and Lebanon – are currently vying for leadership of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, whose stated aim is to “build peace in the minds of men and women”. Heading the agency is seen as a mark of prestige, and a way to widen a nation’s scope of influence in the world of UN institutions.
“It’s an organisation that has been swept away from its mandate to become a sounding board for clashes that happen elsewhere, and this translates into political and financial hijacking,” a former European UNESCO ambassador, who asked to remain anonymous, was quoted as telling the Reuters news agency.
And it is here that the squabbling about the candidates begins.
In UNESCO’s 72-year history, no Arab country has ever been at the helm. European nations, on the other hand, have garnered a total of six mandates, with France leading the pack. This time around, Arab countries make up almost half of the shortlisted candidates. Egypt and Qatar, in particular, feel now is their turn.
French bid under fire
The fact that France, which already has the honour of hosting the agency, has had the nerve to field another candidate – this time former culture minister Audrey Azoulay – has made some see red. Over the summer, a group of Arab intellectuals wrote an open letter to French President Emmanuel Macron urging him to withdraw his support for Azoulay. Jack Lang, the head of the Arab World Institute in Paris, penned a letter in April voicing his opposition to her bid.
In an interview published in French weekly Le Point last week, Egypt’s Moushira Khattab, who along with China’s Quian Tang and Qatar’s Hamad bin Abdulaziz al-Kawari, is considered among the favourites, reiterated this stance.
“There is a tacit agreement that [France] won’t present a candidate for the director-general job. On top of that, it was understood that the next mandate would be awarded to the Arab world, which has never held the post,” Khattab said.
“We don’t understand [France’s] position. Today, who would be better than an Arab Muslim woman, with the necessary qualifications, to speak up against all sorts of radicalism? And this is without taking into account that my country, Egypt, has been at peace in the Middle East for 40 years and can speak with the Israelis and Palestinians,” she said.
Speaking to pan-African weekly Jeune Afrique in September, the French candidate countered that there is no such thing as a “rule of regional rotation" giving candidates from the Arab world precedence. She added: "I don’t want to be a part of this debate which has little to do with what’s actually at stake for UNESCO.”
...
China’s bid, led by UNESCO veteran Tang, has also been met with scepticism. Some critics say Beijing is seeking to take advantage of the gap left behind by the US, in order to gain more influence over UN institutions in general.
Tang denied this in an interview with the Associated Press. "China does not want to replace the United States," he said. "I went to the [US] State Department and I had a long discussion with officials there. I said 'I really don't think you Americans should give up your global responsibility, especially at UNESCO’.”
edited 9th Oct '17 5:39:00 PM by CenturyEye
Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our lives
Would that it were so simple.
"And so getting back to the question, to me this is symptomatic of the failures of democratic institutions around the world. Short term partly management issues take priority in a 24hr news media landscape. Rogue members of the legislature can hijack parliamentary proceedings for their own personal advancement: I would place Ted Cruz and his orchestration of the government shutdown here. Serious debate based on fact and reasoned argument, with long-term decisions made and acted upon by all parties is absent in today's politics. "
I think the real problem of what we're experiencing right now is that government has never been more transparent, but also never more unknowable. The average person could never begin to comprehend the complexities of not just politics, but administration, diplomacy, and war, but in a democracy, the ultimate choice of who gets to lead, and thus place their agenda in place is left in the hands of people who least understand what they're talking about. I mean, even a century ago, when all men in America and Britain could vote, and ninety years ago, when almost every adult could, you never saw a news story about how a surprise vote from a demographic of uneducated farmers threw a wrench in a major treaty negotiation a trade deal. There was less media exposure, yes, but also less mass mobilization, no Internet, no television, no real consensus on ideological platform that everyone could really distill, and there was a general sense that decision making was further from the people. Since then, everything has been more democratized, but because the added responsibilities of civic engagement haven't come with a greater knowledge among the electorate, what our government does is more reflective of our prejudice and our ignorance than of our real potential.
Basically, people are getting the governments they deserve, the media they deserve, the society they deserve, and for anything to change, people have to be better.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.
United Earth
It put the US in great company.
Man, some political cartoons are pretty timeless.
Would that it were so simple.
The isolationists weren't acting contrary to the views of the electorate. I mean, it's not like Henry Cabot Lodge went back to Boston after torpedoing America's entry and found a groundswell of support for the treaty.
Shin Megami Tensei IV
I hate Progressivism as a term. I really do.
Is like saying, "I am the good guy" with no option to debate, except of course arguing "Is this real progressivism?". Is just silly to me.
Also, I dunno where I am on the politics spectrum, I am pretty lefty in practique (excepting some issues that are big) for but overall, I kinda feel like a conservative. And obviously conservatism is just bad because progressivism is obviously good.
You see why I hate the terms?
edited 10th Dec '17 7:40:30 PM by KazuyaProta
Watch me destroying my country
Why? Because he's an incompetent bafoon with the mentality of a child and the temperament of a Rottweiler on cocain? Many successful dictators have been out of their fucking minds, you generally have to be to think that being a dictator is logical in the first place.
Trump can't do it alone no, but so far he's received help from the press, the FBI, law enforcement, a foreign government and Congress, if they continue to help him that's a group that certainly could make a solid attempt at turning the US away from democracy.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran