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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
While I agree that some reactions here have been out of line (I still don't understand why the people trying to organise doxing groups weren't banned) let's not act like Trump isn't a very real possible threat to American democracy, there's a reason I think he will have to be removed from the White House by force if impeached.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran@Tengu: There's also one principle that underlies the founding of American democracy: If a ruler won't respect the rule of law and the rights of their subjects, the people do not owe them their loyalty.
This was the justification (greatly simplified) for us declaring independence from Britain. These days it's preferred to change the system through the electoral process but if a bad ruler gets through and pushes things too far...in this era a revolt would not end well but people would be within their right. In the meantime though, as much resistance as is possible without resorting to violence is necessary. Unfortunately when you have a lot of scared, angry people, violence sometimes breaks out in spite of best intentions.
As for the Electoral College, one of the founders' arguments for having it was to be an emergency brake against someone like Donald getting into office, because scared, angry people in large groups are prone to making bad decisions. It is a shot in the dark though as it would be breaking centuries of tradition and precedent and could lead to worse problems.
edited 21st Nov '16 8:40:03 PM by Elle
One gets the feeling that the Founding Fathers were well aware of the potential problems with democracy even when voting was limited to white male landowners.
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"You'll be back, soon you'll see, you'll remember you belong to me..."
edited 22nd Nov '16 10:51:21 AM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprisedTo draw equivalent to Thai politics, Trump's like the worst of both the Shinawatra's and the junta: corrupt populist government combined with elitist and anti-democratic support structures. His only goal is the enrichment of himself and his cronies at the expense of all others.
Democracy is not sacrosanct. We treat it as such because the alternatives are demonstrably worse, but there have been cases in history where a military coup did fix pretty much everything (such as the end of Fascism in Portugal.) It's just a really risky roll of the dice that you end up with the Carnation Revolution, or the Arab Winter.
Remember that this is not normal. White supremacists, climate deniers, alt-right neo-Nazis and people who hold up the Japanese internment camps as an example of policy to be emulated cannot be allowed to be the new normality of American discourse.
As many people have said, we gave Trump his chance, despite all the awful things he did on the campaign trail. He blew it on day 1, then continued blowing it at least once every day since.
The idea that democracy is some immutable truth of the universe that will always come back if we stay quiet and try not to frighten it away by making nice with fascists is false. There is no unshakeable forward march of progress. This isn't a temporary pause in the way things have always been. If we let the things Trump has done slip, sooner or later people are going to die - hell, people are going to die as part of his campaign pledges, when Pence defunds HIV research, when Bannon stirs up the resentments of whites, when the new head of the EPA acts on his proud self-identification as a climate criminal.
Do not let this be normal. Do not give this a chance.
It's been fun.Trump's election has shown one thing very clearly: you cannot take anything for granted, and I do mean anything. This is not a normal election. Assume that everything is at stake and fight accordingly.
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...I did not know of the existence of this book until now.
It is eerily prescient.
edited 21st Nov '16 9:04:37 PM by Draghinazzo
I must confess I really don’t think two weeks post-election, and two months BEFORE inauguration is enough time to make any judgements about a candidate's performance. My understanding is that a sitting performance is not generally reviewed until a year after assuming office (the generally accepted minimum time it takes for any policy to actually show results). Again, I am not debating that Mr Trump’s presidency looks bleak so far, just that objectively two weeks is not really much of a chance.
@henry42 Perhaps not, but nevertheless the world does have a tendency to view the US as the main democratic example. I cant say for certain about the world in general, but here in Thailand at least if asked to name a democratic country, most people would say "America".
@ Draghinazzo Perhaps I am too much of a democratic absolutist, but I don’t think you can have democracy if one considers opposing viewpoint as fundamentally illegitimate. Sure, occasionally voters will elect stinkers like Mr Trump, but that is just a risk you take to have a democracy.
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It's not necessarily that any opposing viewpoint is illegitimate, it's just that in this particular scenario Trump poses an immense danger to the democratic stability of the US and by extension the world. All the news we have gotten since Trump got elected have basically been terrible, with him putting dangerous racists and white supremacists into positions of power.
It is very dangerous to become complacent and tell oneself that "it could never happen here". It has happened in other places, and it has a better chance of happening in America now than ever before. It is a situation that requires extreme vigilance.
I promise you that if this was a garden variety Republican who got elected such as Jeb Bush or even one of the more reasonable and decent ones such as Mitt Romney, people would be much more calm. Trump is not a normal candidate, and we can't allow him to be one.
edited 21st Nov '16 9:34:35 PM by Draghinazzo
Trump has been in the public eye for about 30 years, give or take and courting the alt-right brand of politics for at least 8. The investigative reporting done on him during the course of the election turns up things that were even worse than the things we knew to start with. We're not exactly making snap judgements here. The guy is a walking middle finger to both decency and American values and many of the things he promised on his campaign are not things that should be quietly allowed to come to pass.
Ordinarily two weeks wouldn't be enough, but ordinarily people don't cause a spike in hate crimes, give a white supremacist a very powerful position, pay out an enormous settlement for fraud, encourage foreign diplomats to bribe him and ban every news source that criticized him from the white house within two weeks.
Like, any one of those things, considered totally independently, would be damning. To do all of them in such a short timeframe, before actually getting into office... Why should we give him any more of a chance than that?

...this is not normal, this is not normal...
edited 21st Nov '16 8:37:08 PM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprised