A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending.
Archived at https://ghostarchive.org/archive/MEbuN?wr=true
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Comments337https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/30/trump-dictator-2024-election-robert-kagan/Open linkView original on lemmy.world
And yet people keep telling me that Biden needs to lose so that Democrats can be "taught a lesson."
Yea this is probably correct. The braindead MAGATS think they’re smart. But they’re just incels who know nothing about economics.
Remember when they tried to be sneaky with the "walkaway" shit before the 2018 midterms? 😂
Or they're accelerationists who think a dictatorship will wind up in a civil war, and the "true" society, whatever their concept is, will be able to rise from the ashes.
"First Hitler, then our turn"
Actual slogan of the German Communists under Thalman
I mean the social democrats had a similar slogan:
"Governments come and go. [...] After Hitler, we come to power! It will once again be the German republicans who will have to clean up the mess. We are preparing for that day!"
Fuck Trump, but tbf people shouldn't be allowed to be in office if they could die tomorrow from old age.
It's hard to understand for a non American, how it can be a Race between these two and only these two. This two party system seems so absurdly stubid. Not that we have it figured out anywhere else much better, but still.
If we had Ranked Choice voting, we'd likely have a much more diverse candidate pool. It's not a perfect solution, but it is better than what we have now
Remind me again, which party is making RCV illegal in the states they control?
Florida, Texas, Montana, Tennessee, South Dakota , Idaho all banned it. Sounds like republicans
Winner winner, chicken dinner.
I think they were obliquely trying to support your position, not challenge it.
JFC.
And trying to convince people to vote for someone else just increases the chance of the worst of the two winning.
It’s technically NOT a two party system. However the two major parties so dominate, that it’s rare for a third party candidate to get elected to any major office.
I think the biggest difference is we’re not a parliamentary system that encourages coalitions. Whoever wins, wins.
The bigger issue with third parties is that none of them actually bother to run anyone at a local or state level. If they started to grow their power and voting base normally, bottom-up, they'd have a lot more success than just sticking up a Presidential also-ran every 4 years and maybe a congressperson here or there.
a left party should 100% be running aginst democrats in any race where they can get more votes than the republican cannidate. think big city local elections and safe blue state rep/federal house seats
Some info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law
https://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/the-problems-with-first-past-the-post-voting-explained.html
I mean, any president can die in office to be fair, regardless of age, hence we have a vice president to take over in such a case
Last American president to die in Office was actually youngest American president ever.
Isn't Trump only like 3 years younger? By yhe end of his term he'd be older than Biden would be at the start of his.
Biden also eats healthy & exercises every day. Trump hasn't exercised since he was in his 30's & has never seen a Big Mac he didn't eat.
That's not true. I'm pretty sure one of his former staffers said he threw one at a wall once.
I'm sure he took a bite out of it first.
Ah yes! Enlightened Centrist and Libertarians. They will always vote GOP no matter how horrible the candidate is with some shit reason to not vote Democrat. OR they will vote for some numbnuts third party candidate with an equally shitty reason.
The common talking points these days are either, "DeMoCrAtS aRe FaScIsTs, ToO!" or, "DeMoCrAtS nEeD tO eArN mY vOtE!"
And I'm sure the next generation will thank them for taking an ideological stand right as Fascism is trying to take over. /s
Special emphasis on "too", of course
problem is your thinking lead to us getting to this point in the first place. y'all should have learned candidate quality matters in 2016 and it's your fault if biden loses because he was your idea in the first place
Too many Democrats are to be sure. But not all democrats. Sanders and others have shown the way to fix this. The biggest issue is that we need younger people involved and running. In my state many Republicans run unopposed for several offices. As bad as it sounds. I would reflexively vote for any Democrat over a republican knowing nothing about either of the two.
We're already seeing the beginnings of that with various candidates, but I agree that we need it to happen more rapidly.
The issue, in a twist of capitalist fuckery, is that running a campaign is massively expensive, and the barrier to entry is often too high for the people who should be running for office. Thankfully, there's orgs helping with that, but it's still an uphill battle.
They can be. At the state and national level to be sure. But even with zero budget, running someone against a Republican vs letting a Republican run unopposed. We'll win infinitely more times just by trying. It should start with smaller offices. And work up from there.
Also, outside of presidential election years. We should donate to a group or groups that back and fund Democrat opposition to Republicans locally. Even if we have to make those groups ourselves. At the national level they've largely given up on many states. So donating to them often does little at home.
Democrats need a new younger bench. And this is a way to fix both the age and fash friendly issues at the same time. Perhaps then we can start to address things like getting money out of politics etc.
Forget running, they need to be voting.
Sanders lost both primaries due to Millenials and Zoomers being so allergic to turnout that they even turn their noses up at their own guy in the primary.
This is easy win territory for young voters, the gap between current performance and just matching their share of the general population alone would push the DNC significantly to the left, let alone if they started showing up with the easy dominating share they could take if they spent half the effort turning out for the cause that they do painting signs and tweeting about it.
primaries aren't free and fail elections, we saw fuckery in 2016 and 2020. why vote when the party leaders can legally rig it?
Rigging it by actually turning out for those instead of throwing a tantrum that the other voting blocks who don't agree with them didn't do the revolution for them?
The left's perennial problem, "well why didn't you fucking vote in (X previous election or primary) then?", every time they try to blame it on something else, it flows back to some other primary or general they also vote striked or protest voted in.
The narcissist's prayer is a fucking Mayan calendar style political prophecy to the white left and doing even the barest minimum in the way of political participation
Bernie had the primary win stolen from him alright, by on paper allies who have to be dragged kicking and screaming to do literally the first thing you should have to prove you did to be allowed to talk shit.
Every single one of you fuckers I see ranting about rigged primaries is just some flavor of Jean Paul Marat wannabe who fantasizes about being able to literally sit but naked in a bath tub all day and pass judgement upon the enemies of the revolution for everyone else to carry out for you.
We act like Democrats actually doing something to earn votes is impossible.
Not at all. But it sounds like you think they haven't done anything.
I think that Democrats appear very weak right now because they're not taking the drastic steps that are needed in order to fix a lot of the existential threats that America faces.
I truly believe that we cannot engage in capitalism as we are currently and still hold on to the planet in the face of global warming. And I don't see anyone in US politics or even global politics willing to make the drastic changes needed to literally save for the planet.
So no, I don't really think they're doing what they need to be doing right now, and it's disheartening.
indeed. weak "left" candidates leave the door open for fascism the world over. how the fuck do you tell people to "hold their noses" and expect that to work? like really, think about it for a minute. I'm mad because these idiots are ruining our country. a progressive candidate would both be a safer bet to win vs. trump and some reforms would sap fascism of it's power, yet we're stuck with candidates like clinton and biden for no good reason. disappointing if they win, and less likely to actually win
Centrist Democrats take the very idea as a greivously offensive blasphemy against all they hold dear.
Don't vote Democrat, vote third party I hear! Me, I'm like well with first past the post voting this is impractical and could help empower fascists to take over, but let's see what options we got.
/opens box of third party candidates, before gently closing it and walking away
Yeah no, Biden still best option, these guys are nutters. It makes sense though, a sensible candidate would run in the democratic primaries, rather than hurting their own purported causes by running in the general in a first past the post election. It's why you saw Bernie Sanders, an independent, running in the democratic primary, and not out there helping to siphon votes to fascists by running as a third party in the general against Biden.
Anyways, let's focus on continuing to empower politicians that want to improve our voting system (usually has been democrats, though with an exception in Alaska). This starts at the local level, but we're getting more and more federal offices now with ranked choice voting. Once you have that, then better quality third party candidates will follow, knowing they can fairly safely run without harming their own causes.
Biden can be the best option for you, and it can still be imperative that we vote third party. If you think the dems and repubs are ever going to give up FPTP, you're insane.
State ballot access is a big deal that can impact local elections as well.
I show up to vote against Brownback and in support of abortion. Then I vote against every incumbent and to fire all the judges.
Unfortunately, there are few leftists that push the same narrative, too. And all because Biden (or Obama, or Hillary) are not the pretty pony they think they were promised or something.
Point of fact: Clinton's centrists were so upset that they didn't get their very first choice in 2008 that they formed a PAC to try to get McCain/Palin elected. And they've been screaming "no matter who" ever since.
I have no special affinity for either of the Clintons. However, it cannot be denied that there is a certain type of leftist (often very loud, and probably the minority, thankfully) that behave like petulant children when they don't get their pretty pony, whoever that is.
Don't get me wrong - I'd like that pretty pony, too. I just realize that even if people don't love Hillary, she'd still be better than OJ (Orange Jesus) and so once the primaries are over, voting for donnie to really stick it to the man, or sit out, or vote for some completely unserious party like the Green Party is not really teaching anyone the lesson(s) that the people stamping their feet think they are.
OJ represents a very existential threat. Just because he flubbed the RW agenda the first time around doesn't mean he won't succeed in destroying America if given another chance.
The only thing you want is unquestioning worship of the party from everyone to your left.
LOL, I only vote for them because I have to. What is the realistic alternative? Unless we have something like ranked choice, voting for Green or staying home or writing something in is just a vote for Republicans.
And you only choose to constantly belittle anyone who isn't 100 percent ecstatic with everything the party does because you want to.
I do worry that Biden will lose though. He was far from a popular candidate to begin with and his support of Israel's genocide of Palestinians has made him even less so. In many ways the best outcome might be for him to die in office prior to the election or for him to lose the primary. It would hurt the Democrats to have a non-incumbent running, but possibly less than running Biden. The real wildcard though is if Trump will even end up on the ballot considering his legal issues.
Good. Everybody should think this. Thinking Trump can't possibly win is how he won in 2016.
We need to behave as if it's a real possibility, even if you feel optimistic about next year.
Party leadership should also be doing this and doing what they can to win voters. Instead, the only message I'm hearing is "if you breathe so much as a word of discontent, it's because you're a Russian troll who wants Trump to be dictator for life."
100% this.
If Biden were not on the ballot next year, the Democratic candidate would be Kamala Harris. No mainstream Democrat would challenge her in 2024, the optics would be horrible.
Mmm, I doubt it, even other dems don't like her very much right now
I'd want Gretchen Whitmer to go for it,
Doesn't really matter if she is well liked, no other Democrat will challenge her in 2024. For starters, it is too late to get on the primary ballot.
I feel like in most cases "the incumbent croaked" would suffice as an excuse to get some names on the board, also, maybe Kamala turns out to be the second coming of LBJ, so we'll get some pretty good social programs everyone's gonna forget about eventually, some significant expansions in civil rights, but also entanglement in an unpopular conflict, venturing a guess I'll say defending Somalia Eritrea and Djibouti from invasion by Ethiopia.
Israel is unpopular enough, but being on the side of a dictatorship and a failed state that tries to force its control onto a breakaway that self governs at least better than its former fellow countrymen, all in the name of international law and order, feels like the kind of conflict Kamala would be involved in, and that folks would have misgivings over, most because "why are we sending our troops to defend a dictator?" and that select group everyone loves spouting off how you should withold from voting over it because something something respecting national sovereignty as well as the clear results in favor of independence in a fair referendum run by Ethiopia is colonialism just like how not letting Russia eat neighbors because something something little russians is colonialism.
Primaries aren't run by excuses, they are run by rules. There are state laws regarding who can get on a ballot, Biden/Harris qualified, and Whitmer did not. Which means that when the primaries roll around, Biden/Harris will be on the state ballots, and Whitmer won't. Which means that throughout the primary season, Biden/Harris will be racking up delegates who are loyal to Biden/Harris.
If anything happens to Biden at this point, his delegates will vote for Harris at the nominating convention. Why? Because they were chosen specifically for that purpose. You only get to be a primary delegate for Biden/Harris 2024 if you are a strong supporter of both Biden and Harris. Specifically if you support them a lot more than Whitmer, Newsom, etc. If you have doubts about either Biden or Harris, then the Biden/Harris campaign will find someone else to be a delegate. All this means Whitmer has no chance at becoming the nominee as long as Harris is still around.
As for the rest: yes, Harris might be a great president. But most people who want a different Democratic candidate do not realize that she is the only alternative for 2024.
The way that talking point gets pushed unusually hard by an unusually dedicated few using the same stupid arguments looks an awful lot like the kind of psyops campaigns I'd see when I was on Reddit during the Trump presidency.
The real long term solution is changing how we vote. Star Voting or some form of Ranked Choice. That's how I respond along with https://fairvote.org so, in case some impressionable soul happens along, they aren't taken in by such silliness. I encourage others to consider doing something similar.
People have no idea how to move the overton window.
My Roman Empire is remembering how the shitheads screamed and yelled denying responsibility on the day Dobbs came down.
Was grocery shopping with my grammy and had to pull the most hemmeroid passingly determined poker face in history to not break out into cursing them and their obvious waste of what privileges they live with to be in the position of treating this like it's teaching the DNC a lesson.
Fucking Priv Shit Vote Karens, every last one of them, "Take me to the party's manager right now or I'll let the fascists take away even more of your rights!"
Why can't democrats run a better candidate?
Voting is a chess move, not a love letter.
Absconding with that quote.
Ok you're being out played when your best move is vote Biden
Tell me you don't understand how party politics & voting work without telling me you don't understand how party politics & voting work.
"I'm not owned that's just how the game is played"
-person who's totally getting owned
Because the party isn't going to defy the incumbent president. This should be obvious.
It's not obvious, please explain why not. He's worse for their chance of winning.
The why not is that he wants to run again and he's the president. Why do you think the Democrats would say no to him? He's the president.
Those reasons are total dog shit
What do you think happens when you tell a president no? Do you think he says, "okay then, you know best."
In a functioning democracy or in the United States
They all ran before the 2020 election, people mainly liked Biden. (I voted Bernie). The time to get a better candidate than Biden was then, changing things up would be a huge risk for Democrats and would help Trump (R's can't easily say Biden is insane and take their away their rights, unlike a new candidate which they can say is the bogeyman). This is the exact same reason Trump ran basically unopposed for his 2nd term, its generally the best idea in the US's system vs picking another candidate. If you care about how "bad" Biden is, then vote in the next general and help out the best candidate.
Depends how cynical you feel today.
IMO it's either:
The DNC believes anyone too progressive will get stomped in the general election
Don't forget, Dems would be conservatives in most other countries. As much as I hate to say it, I'm not convinced most of them aren't just as beholden to corporate interests as R is.
OR
Probably a little of both of those actually. Also, maybe a dash of - boomers are going to control our politics until a bunch more boomer voters and boomer politicians die of old age.
They can and I wish they would, but it's too late this election. Anyone else would have two weeks or so to get on the ballot and get name recognition and get people to like what they're doing. Not really sure that's possible.
it's because of people defending biden's atrocities. like, there's more than one person you can run, and most of the options could poll better vs. trump.
Such as?
Biden needs to deliver on at least one campaign promise - be a 1 term President, and drop out of the race now, so we don’t risk the election.
His ego, nor the desires of his donors, are not worth sacrificing democracy.
Your wish is granted.
Is Lemmy really loading whole images when loading a site, even though I can't enlarge them without actually going to actual image source? What a good way to waste data.
what does "reignited the WHO" mean? some of these are so vauge as to be meaningless.
Only on the internet:one side of the argument posts a lengthy list of facts, and the response is simply “fuck all”
Bottom right of the image literally reads: "List source: whatbidenhasdone.wordpress.com"
The site isn't as thorough with sourcing from there, but they have a blog post with various sources cited, and their twitter account is full of sources for their claims.
No I mean a source that is easily and clearly placed in front of me that I can still complain about not being the “correct” sources. /s
The Inflation Reduction Act was a big deal internationally, but I feel like you and I have already talked about it, so I don't want to rehash it.
For everyone else's safe, I'll just say that even though it isn't enough, Biden still achieved a historic level of funding for sustainability with the IRA, to the point that it forced European countries to pass similar legislation so their green energy companies could still be competitive with US green energy companies. I would've preferred to see legislation like this 15-20 years ago, but the second best time is always the present.
The man has kept plenty of campaign promises. Pretending he's done nothing for the American people at every level is just dishonest. People have the right to express bullshit if they choose, and I have an equal right to call it out.
Like which things in particular? Biden has done things, and having an image with BS undermines his actual accomplishments.
Wait, you not only want him to be a one-term president, you don't even want him to finish his term? We get President Harris until 2024?
Your ability to fly has come at the cost of your reading comprehension I see.
Or I wrote that before your edit. You do know people can see when you edit a post on Lemmy, right?
I'm not op, you're not helping your case lol
Ok, I wrote it before OP edited it. Either way, I wrote it first when it said Biden should stop being president and now it's been edited to say something else.
I'm not sure what you think my "case" is.
Polls a year out are meaningless. Obama was also "losing" at this point before his re-election.
Nationally, Democrats have been beating polls by 9+ points at the ballot box since Roe v. Wade was overturned.
Reminder of what an absolute shit-bird Robert Kagan is.
Kagan is one of the shitheads that got us to this point. He's now concern-trolling us about how we shouldn't bother opposing Trump.
I completely agree but I would just like to point out that Glenn Greenwald is also a massive shithead.
Yes, he absolutely is, but he was also correct in that particular assessment.
EXACTLY. I'm getting tired of these doom and gloom articles from journalists who know better.
Either the media wants a horse race or they absolutely don't know how to poll post Roe v. Wade.
Probably both.
Or they're consistently polling only LAN lines.
It's really surprised to me how quickly this dropped from political discourse and analysis. We've had several off year elections and the midterms now where Republicans have underperformed. Polls have largely seemed to miss this trend.
There's a lot of reasons to be hopeful right now. Republicans can't control their messaging on abortion, and it's very clear voters are unhappy about bans. Yet, Republicans in the House are only barely aware of it, and in the Senate you'd think they hadn't seen any results at all. Tuberville's continued hold for abortion reasons, while voters have made it clear anti abortion advocates can go fuck themselves, is remarkably visible. I don't think it's a mistake that Republicans are signaling they'll bypass him if he doesn't budge. Elections a month ago make it clear it's a millstone around their necks.
We have an advantage to capitalize on, but it only matters if we press the advantage. We have to show up en masse to the election.
Moreover, the Democrats need to get their messaging together. Hammer in that THESE ARE THE PEOPLE who overturned Roe, who are currently cratering Florida and Texas, who allowed COVID to run rampant. Hammer in Tuberville blocking military promotions, hammer in Johnson and McConnell both effectively refusing to do any of their jobs, hammer in Trump nearly getting us into a shooting war with Iran (remember that assassination we carried out during a peace conference?) Remind the voters who exactly Trump is, what exactly he's done, and what exactly he's stated he's going to do.
At this point, I think it's advantageous for anyone who is set in their decision to lie on polls and say you'd vote for the opposite candidate in the hopes of making that side complacent and light a fire under your side.
Just because he's a neocon piece of shit doesn't mean he can't be right. Also, dude, Glen Greenwald is no fucking saint either. That guy is a certified scumbag. At least with Kagan there's a chance that he actually believes his bullshit, whereas with Greenwald, we know he's an intellectually dishonest grifter.
Obama was about 46% and trending upwards at this point, Biden is 37% and trending downward. This is a pretty nice visualization of historical presidential approval ratings plotted with Biden's. Takeway is while other presidents have tanked way harder (Nixon, Dubya, HW), Trump and Biden are basically tied for historical unpopularity on a consistent basis. Biden did hit mid 50s as he came in to office where most presidents get a bump, Trump didn't even reach 50.
Same paper that just ran the "Women should stop shunning Trump supporters in their dating pool" article. I guess that's so they'll be less likely to abused under the pending dictatorship?
Same author?
Because papers often run a variety of opinion pieces...
Really wish people would stop posting / up voting garbage opinion pieces here. I want facts, not hot takes.
Big, solid, nuanced take against the 11 page opinion piece.
Maybe tell the other folks reading the same online conversation platform as you are what you thought made this specific link you decided to comment on "garbage".
I am someone who is against opinion pieces in general, regardless of the content. Nate Silver also has an argument against them: the main difference with an opinion piece and normal journalism is that opinions don’t need to be fact checked. In which case there’s no reason for them to exist. If the argument cannot survive fact checking, it shouldn’t be published.
Opinions, columns, and editorials are all traditional news formats where a known personality gives their take on current events. Basically you can't "fact check" someone's commentary because they're not reporting factual takes on current events, and you can't really objectively say "your analogy to this historical event is not analogous enough" for instance because there isn't really measures for these things. Nate Silver's argument against them is itself an opinion that can't be fact checked. "Fact checking" itself is also determined by the ideology you're choosing to determine facts by or even which specific facts are chosen to be highlighted in an article. What is and what ought isn't something that you can simply fact check.
The fact that it’s “traditional” is not a good reason to keep something around despite the negative consequences. The fact is, most news consumers do not know about the lower editorial standards of opinion articles, so opinion pieces have been a significant source of misinformation. This is how we get Jim Carey writing about climate skepticism in a major newspaper.
What’s so impossible about a fact-checked journalistic article entitled: “Should opinion pieces be eliminated?” Seems possible to me!
I think it's just a silly proposal that's hardly worth debating so I can see why it appeals to someone like Nate Silver. The notion that you could control misinformation by removing certain writing styles from circulation is incredibly stupid. Plus on social media everyone is an opinion writer now.
Moral ought from an is. Just because news sources have decided to put opinion pieces in doesn't mean that it is right that they did.
That's just intellectually lazy. We should be able to process analysis that isn't our own.
Then you are also intellectually lazy, because there is no way you are verifying the truth of every claim made in the articles you read. The role of newspapers is to inform people, not make random claims of dubious truth and have readers “do their own work”. It’s astounding that people are actually against basic fact checking.
Did you notice how this opinion piece is littered with links sourcing what Kagan is talking about? This article is easily fact-checked. It's not the author's fault if you're not willing to do your due diligence.
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You seem to think my objection has something to do with whether it’s obvious that this particular piece is an opinion piece? I have no idea why you think this. Completely bizarre, and what an unnecessarily aggressive tone.
I am against opinion pieces because most consumers do not know that they have lower editorial standards, making them a big source of misinformation. If opinion pieces had the same journalistic standards, I would not be opposed to them.
That sounds like a media literacy problem, not a problem with opinion pieces themselves. I have a degree in journalism and the idea that anyone could somehow not know the difference between a straight news story and an opinion piece is baffling. Do we not have basic critical thinking skills anymore?
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No thanks. I do not want to talk about or critique an opinion piece. I want objective political news from this channel. Leave opinion for the comments.
Who knew only anons had the dibs on writing or speaking their opinions!
24 hour news networks need to fill their time with opinion pieces. We have plenty of other content in other communities to fall back on. We don't need filler content promoted here.
Hot take: rap rock is inferior to both styles it derives from and the rap in the middle is not as good as the traditional chorus.
Good point and probably not, but I'm too lazy to look right now.
Edited to add: Presumably same editorial team, so the seeming dissonance between the two articles isn't lessened much by having different authors.
It really depends a lot. If it's something by the editorial board itself, then it's a very jarring difference. But you can have writers with polar opposite viewpoints in editorials. It used to be nice from a reader perspective to get that variety, but then the right went wacko.
That said, I do think it's weird the section editor would approve something like "women need to date more conservatives". Maybe they take the approach of not being responsible for what their authors say, but that crosses enough lines that it's odd they didn't step in.
No, these are op-eds, which are written by contributors and are different from editorials which, as the name suggests, are written by the editorial board. Op-eds traditionally were printed opposite of the editorial page --hence the name-- and were meant to be a space for subject matter experts or other thought leaders to publish opinion pieces that may or may not reflect the views of the editorial board.
I know these things because even though I've never worked for a newspaper, I am old enough to have gotten an undergrad degree in journalism back in the 90s before the newspaper industry died.
Oh interesting! I thought it was called op-ed for opinions & editorials
Good points, thanks for the peek into the industry. Without the usual sarcasm I will say you sound like you know what you are talking about. 🙂
Heh, I should clarify, I'm talking from my experience on my high school paper -- which was a damn good paper that we worked our asses off on! But it's a worthwhile stipulation to make. I'm pretty sure our processes were the same as industry for a lot of things, but I could always be wrong.
Consider it a peek into what's probably maybe what it's like. I think it probably does work the way I've described, fwiw
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That's good to know, thanks. I'll have to keep a close eye on it. I subscribe to the NYT as well but I've been souring on them lately too.
Nah this is Robert Kagan, a Brookings Institute neocon, Republican who left in 2016, advisor to McCain for his presidential run in 2008.
Neither of these were written by the WaPo's editorial board. They are both op-eds meaning they're written by contributors and in the old print format would be placed opposite from the editorial page, hence the name "op-ed."
Your comment shows a deep misunderstanding of how these things work and what function newspapers are trying to fulfill with them, but it's probably not your fault since media literacy tends to be pretty abysmal in the US.
So the editorial staff has no say in what is published in their newspaper? That's definitely a different view of what the word "editor" means than I've had in the past, you've got a point there.
Having said that, I got a much less snarky answer explaining some things already, so your sideswipe wasn't necessary. Thank you sir and I hope the rest of your day is as lovely as you are.
Maybe it's not my abysmal media literacy but the fact that you know these things because you have a degree in journalism. Huh. Guess I'll find something where you have a less than perfect understanding of my area of expertise or where I've had some secondary education, and be sure to point out how abysmal your literacy in that area is.
Non English speaker: inevitable means it will happen no matter what. They way i see it, its used wrong here correct? It should maybe have been 'increasingly realistic' or maybe 'increasingly plausible' but inevitable assumes that voting for someone else won't stop it from happening
It's only inevitable if we do nothing
So pretty much inevitable then. :(
Kind of like Sandy Hook and Uvalde. Welcome to America.
When you see his opponent it becomes easier to understand.
As an American I can't understand how anyone could vote for him once.
As a Canadian, I can absolutely understand how someone less informed in politics and (rightfully) angry at the political establishment would vote for Trump in 2016 just to flip the bird to Hillary. Americans need to understand why he won to make sure it doesn't happen again.
After seeing how the super delegates worked against Sanders, and how blatantly undemocratic our process of selecting candidates truly is, a lot of people fell into the trap of "fuck it, burn the world down then". I know a lot of people reacted that way when the Republican party's obvious rigging of the 2012 nomination worked against Ron Paul even though the votes were tallied in some states that he was the actual victor, but the derailment of his campaign by announcing Mitt Romney as the winner did enough damage....even though the Republican party chairs for several states had to resign due to the obvious false declarations and ignoring of the votes counted in primaries happened.
The real problem is the lack of confidence in our democracy and the rampant apathy that works against constructive progress.
Especially because he was almost guaranteed to win against Trump, but they know where the money comes from and decided to go with Hillary, who was historically unlinked as a candidate. I think this ought to have demonstrated that real change cannot come from within the Democratic party and that they are not willing to be the left party people wish they were, they're part of the downward spiral. (And yes they're better than the GOP, always have to get that in for the concerned voters out there.)
It's funny how this idea of "free and fair elections" has recently come up in such a historically corrupt system, it's true that elections today are better than they've ever been in this respect, 2008 onward were incredibly tight on this. Seems like people forget how the 2001 election was stolen. Historically it's almost a joke how bad they were. It was routine for busses to drive around picking up people and dropping them off at voting stations in exchange for a bit of money. It hasn't even been 60 years since everyone in the US could vote! At first you basically needed to be a landowner and even produce from your land to be able to vote. The men's suffrage movement was like a century before women's suffrage.
I'm really glad you mentioned some of the progress, while it's not ideal, it does remind me that we ended the Gilded Age, and we can continue to confront the robber barons of our time. In US history we've already had a few near misses where we almost went the road the Romans did by giving a wealthy person absolute authority. We have to stay aware and be ever vigilant.
That's really when America as it exists today was created too, between the Civil War and WW1. Often glossed over in the popular mythology of America.
indeed. the democrats have been enablers to this whole process
I apparently have difficulty empathizing with people who aren't paying attention to what they're voting for (or against).
It's been estimated that 13% of Trump's voters were Obama voters. The degree to which this impacted his victory is debated, but this group is almost invisible in the way Trump is understood in the popular discourse, which is almost entirely determined by... Trump's own spectacle of rhetoric and the feedback it generates. The degradation of civic institutions and disenfranchisement is a major factor, experiencing this while you're exposed to political marketing like, Kamala Harris doing a happy and smiley scripted bit where she tells children if they're "authentic" they will succeed, not only does that not connect with the reality of people's struggles but it's a slap in the face to them.
I don't. What was there to be mad at Hilary about that made people want to vote for a child raping, tax fraud committing, racist crook?
You have to understand that most people don't pay that much attention to politics. They see a woman who embodies everything they hate about the US government establishment, and they see a guy who is raging against said establishment. If Dems had let Bernie win Trump would have been crushed.
I was working at this business owner’s home. Smart, genuine, kind guy in his mid-40s with a beautiful “nuclear” family. He said he was going to vote for Trump because his sister in law worked at one his properties and she spoke well of him. That was it. That’s how a seemingly respectable upstanding well-to-do member of the community chose the president of the United States. Or, at worst, that was the reason he felt compelled to tell others.
People in the US don't understand what political ideologies are and literally vote for someone based off of "I'd like to have a beer with that guy!".
My in-laws voted for him twice. They are pro-life, and that's all that matters to them. Otherwise they support progressive policies like single-payer healthcare. But when it comes to abortion, they will vote for a literal anti-Christ to make it illegal. Funny that they are Catholic.
People who say they are pro-life will vote for the most pro-death policies, it's crazy.
The cruelty is the point.
"pro-life" is a dog whistle. it's anti-woman and everyone knows it
Its not funny. Its ludacris.
Your in-laws sound like uninformed rubes.
They kind of are, no college education and they don't take the time to self-educate. Their support for single payer healthcare is something that both me and my husband have been working on with them for a while. I don't think they are completely lost - they never showed the kind of hate I've seen from other Trump supporters. So I'll keep trying.
So they're going to vote for the guy that had an abortion?
If murder was legal, and somebody who was known to have committed murder was running, and you were confident that person would make murder illegal, and you were convinced that their opponent (who may have never committed murder themselves) would actively encourage more murder, maybe even pay poor people to commit murder, which candidate would you vote for?
This is exactly their reasoning. To a tee.
I can't follow this argument. Try to be more concise.
Their decisions are logical based on their map, which is grossly inconsistent with the territory. Better?
Trust me, we've tried to reason with them. It's maddening because they are otherwise mostly reasonable people, just ignorant politically and scientifically.
They'll vote for him a third time. Believe me, folks. *accordion hands*
As a non-American I can’t understand how Bernie wasn’t voted in decades ago.
If there's anything the last few years taught the world, stupid people are far more numerous and far more stupid than we thought.
Perhaps we should have a way to flag opinion pieces.
Is anyone honestly confused as to whether or not it's an opinion piece? I find that very hard to believe, but I guess you never know...
Yeah LOL. It's just sooo over the top. Garbage like this I expect on Twitter. Gotta filter the noise on lemmy too I guess.
There are graduating seniors in high-school this year. That group of unregistered voters needs to be coaxed to register, and vote. They need easy, step by step directions. They need to understand their new power of citizenship. They can be tried as adults. They should know who the sheriff is. They should know its an elected position. They need to learn this shit, and most likely it's not gonna happen in school. Please ticktock or whatever. Make it viral.
I still don't understand why people have to register to vote. Everyone should automatically be registered to vote.
I think you know the answer.
Honestly I don't
I live in a country where everybody who is entitled to vote, gets a vote in their mail box and a dedicated place where they can go and vote. They can even send in their votes before hand or vote in the local library.
I don't see how one side or the other or any can benefit by low voting percentages
Republicans do better in elections with low voter turnout because old white people vote at disproportionately high rates.
But it has always been like this no? Have Americans ever not had to register to vote? Why cant all just be automatically registered to vote?
Republicans are currently making it harder for left-leaning populations to vote, by closing polling stations in urban areas or opposing vote-by-mail. Automatic voter registration is being actively resisted. That is "why".
Voter registration became a thing in the 1800s to limit the voice of immigrants, adopted state by state.
Oregon first, and about a dozen other states since, have made registration automatic when you get a driver's license or state ID.
So yeah it's pretty much always been like this.
Central registered of all citizens with ID-number. I'm pretty sure your nation has it, as does mine. So the government knows where you live, and where you can vote. If you move these things are automatically updated. So it's easy to make sure everyone can vote in the "correct" ballots ect.
None of this is true with the US
it's because of racism.
But they better vote the way we want them to vote. /sarcasm
If you've ever wondered why no one killed Hitler on his rise to power, now you know.
What should we do about it? Other than vote and try to talk people out of voting for Trump.
Basically, this coming election will be decided by the margins because almost everyone who follows politics–at all–knows who they're voting for already.
Think about the number of people who follow politics and then understand that those people are already not the demographic that will likely decide the outcome. It's the people who are surprised they Joe Biden and Donald Trump are on the ballot that matter.
It isn't worth trying to pressured persuade either the right or the left. What we need is to activate and engage the non-participating section of the electorate. This is hard, but achievable. It's people who work multiple jobs and don't have time for politics that need to know it matters if they vote. Civil rights are not a given and 2024 will be hugely consequential.
Take your friends with you on election day! Register for vote by mail and bug your friends too! Take about it and don't leave easy points on the table. Yes the options are terrible. Yes one of them will make the possibility of improving it ever infinitely more difficult.
The people saying it doesn't matter do not understand what they stand to lose. It is so so much harder to build something than tear it down and our imperfect institutions will not save us. Politics matters and the luxury of not caring, will lead to co-optation and the loss of rights that are easy to take for granted now.
Target reluctant republicans that don't like Trump but so far are only willing to abstain. I'm pushing hard for them to send the strongest message they can by voting for Biden. I think if we plant enough seeds they may go for it in the privacy of the voting booth, even if they won't admit it.
It is possible, my kermudgen grandfather began voting blue in 2016 because of Trump
Technically it's spelled curmudgeon, but your spelling makes me think of Kermit as a grumpy old frog-man so I think I prefer it 😆
T'is not an inaccurate description of ma gramps
Young people need to register. Help them!
That's it. That's the best we have short of organizing mass mass protests and raids. Which definitely isn't going to happen.
Maybe Trump will have a heart attack before the election...
What's interesting is that if there really was a "deep state" that works like the radicalized right wing imagines, it begs the question - why didn't this so-called "deep state" find a lone wolf/patsy like Oswald for OJ (Orange Jesus)?
I'm stealing that
I'd rather he lives the rest of his life in prison, personally, and completely cut off from any kind of mass media platform.
yup, vote, and call out any of the children larping revolutionaries who refuse to vote
Fuckin' privs drive me up the damn wall. They act like they're taking some noble stand for the palestinian people, meanwhile me the actual fucking palestinian am staring down the barrel of having to go without my Keffiyeh in public lest I get beaten, called a Sand N****r, and told to be grateful the bastards who did it to me didn't bring a rope, all on the back of their militant refusal to lift a finger in solidarity and vote against Trump.
These so called allies of my people seem to like me much more as a potential martyr for their cause than as an agent for my own.
Don't you guys have book depositories any more?
As long as there's a royal family and house of lords...
This is stupid fear-mongering horse s*** that ignores all the steps Americans are taking to fight against Trump being elected, and ignoring that they voted him out 3 years ago.
Stupid b*******.
It's a good piece and I think the analysis is largely accurate. But there's one thing I think Kagan missed: Trump isn't the only would-be dictator who could take power. He lists DeSantis and Haley as the closest competitors to Trump within the Republican Party, but he doesn't point out that even if, by some miracle, one of them becomes the party nominee, they would assume the very same dictatorial powers Trump is threatening to wield. Neither of them is going to defend democracy when offered the reins of tyranny, and both could easily hold power for decades. Trump maybe has a single decade at most.
The problem isn't simply Trump wanting to be President for Life. The problem is that the path has been cleared for any Republican to assume that role the next time one is elected. Project 2025 won't work for Trump only. The next time we have a Republican President, expect it to be the last time we have a fair election.
Not to run interference for those shitbags cause most of them are just as evil but I wouldn’t say they all equally threaten democracy. For one I’m not sure their base would allow a woman to be dictator lol even if she won due to institutional fuckery
Anyone who thinks she wouldn't try is deluding themselves. They're both cut from the same cloth, but they're not afflicted with dementia yet.
No, none of the other GOP candidates have anything even remotely like Trump's grip on the base. Without that none of the above can happen. Trump got where he is through a long series of steps that Kagan details in the piece. There is no world in which some other candidate steps in and immediately plugs into the same kind of power that Trump has amassed as a result of Republican cowardice. Every one of them would have to start over with consolidating power in a party that's swarming with amoral power-hungry grifters.
honestly I think only trump has what it takes to form the cult of personality necessary to take over. he's got the charisma to entrance 35% the country. DeSantis is more temperamentally fit to be the lieutenant you send in to do massacres than a figurehead leader
Bezos' pile of money is so big if he got out today his great-grandchildren will have no fucking idea how to spend all their money. He has no reason to care what anyone fucking thinks until they start breaking out the forks and knives.
I mean other than the fact that money will not save them in a destroyed society or world. Why do you think they argue over the best way to control their security teams, shock collars or limited food? Because they only have as much power as they have control and it will slip from their grasp if they do fuck all with it and let it burn around them.
Billionaires will be fine. They have built their doomsday bunkers and they're waiting for the dictators to genocide everyone else so they can crawl out into the sunlit depopulated paradise.
It's fun that you think Bezos takes any interest or part in the day to day workings of the WaPo.
Stop sucking Trump's cock, www.washingtonpost.com. There's nothing inevitable about Trump but lies, treason, and bullshit.
As the author keeps comparing Trump to Napoleon and Hitler, I can't help but wonder if maybe the US is due a conflagration. At what point do we admit that the American experiment returned a null result?
In the cases of France and Germany, the answer was violence. Oppression has never been defeated with pacifism. If history is our guide and conservatives are our oppressors, soon we may have to make some very difficult life and death decisions.
Conservatives have already embraced violence as part of their ideology, which I think makes the path out of their oppression more clear.
I was taught that Gandhi helped India defeat the oppression of the British Raj with pacifism.
Is that not the case? I mean I wouldn't be surprised if Power taught me peaceful protest works every time.
as Orwell stated:
"As an ex-Indian civil servant, it always makes me shout with laughter to hear, for instance, Gandhi named as an example of the success of non-violence. As long as twenty years ago it was cynically admitted in Anglo-Indian circles that Gandhi was very useful to the British government. So he will be to the Japanese if they get there. Despotic governments can stand ‘moral force’ till the cows come home; what they fear is physical force."
Pretty sure two devastating world wars were a major factor.
You couldn't have Martin without Malcom and you couldn't have Ghandi without Ghadar.
it was a lie, of course.
the choice of weather there will be violence isn't ours to make, the conservatives have made it for us, and they chose violence. our choice is to resist or concede to fascism. conceding won't make the violence stop, it will only make it worse and don't let anyone convince you otherwise
I think it's more that human societies are very rarely stable across 3 or more generations. The US has had a number of major crises through its history, it's definitely due for another. Repeating the dead line about a failed experiment is kind of needlessly deaf to that history.
All you can do for now is stand up and fight it.
Probably when the commerce clause meant the fed can regulate shit you do in your home with your own body.
But even failed experiments give data. I'm a fan of the bill of rights, save for a few niggling details.
Polls are meaningless when nobody answers the phone and/or they call people who don’t actually vote. Kids today know to shut up and beat the shitbags at the polls. We are collectively punishing the Republicans for 40 years of attacks against our society.
There is a reason that no poll I've ever responded to has ever straight up asked me who I plan on voting for in the next election.
They can spin your feelings, They can't spin a simple yes/no question.
Dang I didn't notice that before. I was polled once and they only asked me what I thought of my current elected officials not who I planned to vote for.
Guess it wouldn't get clicks if they were honest
Push polls are the only ones I've ever gotten, and those seldom and not for a long time.
Are people really going to vote for a 80’ish year old would be dictator? For notionally a 4 year term? And no coherent succession plan?
He got more votes after people knew exactly who he was. I don't think he's lost many of them the more 'out loud' he gets.
Actually if you go by percentage Trump basically won nobody new, he just picked up more votes total because vote by mail made the poles more accessible to more folks who would have voted for him anyways.
What changed was that people weren't fucking around and voted solidly against him, giving Biden an absolute majority of the popular vote.
Yes.
Shit website
Paywall
Bezos
Good thing the archive was posted with it.
https://ghostarchive.org/archive/MEbuN?wr=true
Kagan has many problems, but that doesn't make him wrong here.
Quite honestly, I go back and forth on whether a Trump second term would result in a dictatorship. Don't get me wrong, he would do immense damage to our democracy and should be kept as far away from power as possible. (Preferably in a prison cell.)
Trump's first term, though, showed that Trump was often too incompetent to fulfill what he wanted to do. Not only that, but he was prone to get distracted by shiny things. He's going to go after the "deep state" and kick out anyone who doesn't support him? Well, first he needs to hold a press conference with a hurricane map that he marked up with a sharpie.
All this being said, the best case scenario for a Trump second term is that democracy is seriously wounded. We could emerge from it still with our voting rights intact, but with our entire democracy vulnerable to the next guy who can con a group of people into thinking that he's protecting them from The Other by removing everyone's rights.
This is an incredibly naive take (no offense), and is exactly the kind of thinking that allows authoritarianism to take root.
It can happen here
Regardless of Trump's competency, I can guarantee you that the anti-democratic powers that underpin Trump, galvanize his authority, and who do posses the competency to back his authority will absolutely accomplish a silent dictatorship in this country should he re-gain power.
You are absolutely insane to believe, given every single historical warning to the contrary, that this will not happen. I would go so far as to say that given the current geo-&-socio-political climate that this is the MOST likely scenario at the present time. History has a tendency to rhyme, and we are in the pre-global conflict phase of the paradigm. Every single person in this country who cares about the democratic process should take this threat deadly serious.
It can happen here.
It can happen to you.
It can happen in your lifetime.
WAKE THE FUCK UP.
I think you're misreading what I wrote. I was saying that the best case scenario of a second Trump term is that he continues his habit of getting in his own way and fails to institute a dictatorship. But even then, he'd do so much damage that it would only be a matter of time before the next wanna be dictator used the doors that Trump opened to finish the job.
When even the best case scenario is "democracy is on life support," we've got to do everything possible to stop Trump's second term.
Of course, what I didn't mention in my original comment - and what likely tips the scales in what will happen - is not what Trump would do, but what others would do. When Trump won, I don't think the right was prepared for the amount of power Trump was going to let them wield.
They likely thought he would lose or would be a "typical Republican" up to that point - willing to bend the Constitution a bit but not outright shred it. By the time, they realized what they could do, they had no time to get plans together and people in place. The midterms had already occurred and Democrats controlled Congress.
Now, though, they have Project 2025. They are organized and know exactly what they need to do to fatally wound democracy. Would Trump get in their way and (accidentally) stop them from achieving their goal? It's possible, but I'm not willing to risk our democracy on that bet.
So you know about Project 2025, but you're still questioning whether or not they'd go through with it?
Assume they will.
I am morbidly curious just how bad project 2025 could go. Imagine entire economic collapse as the biggest employer in the US and biggest creditor on earth doesn't have the staff to pay bills. Just a room full of heritage foundation pundits asking each other who knows what the password is for the Federal Reserve or Treasury. Because they fired everyone there for being too woke.
I'm pretty sure we've seen a preview of how it will look. They've been using that playbook pretty consistently.
We can see a few examples. Kissinger for example would mess with the battle plans for Cambodia and we know that about 40% of the fatalities there were children, that it had o impact on Vietcong forces, ended between 150k-300K lives, creates 2.5 million refugees, and led to the bloodiest dictatorship in history. So here is an example of a pundit being appointed to run something where we can measure the outcome.
There's a bitter irony in the face of the system collapsing not because the masses rose up and fought for a better future, but because those seeking to enslave humanity finally got everything they thought they wanted...
I do it at work all the time. The moment someone starts giving me advice on how to do things I put them in-charge of it. Oh boy does the tune change fast and sometimes unexpectedly they do an awesome job. They sit there all day with their journalism degrees spewing out hateful shit for clicks and think that qualifies them to run things, well let's let them run things. Let their legacy be getting exactly what they want and demonstrating how little they know.
I think I did actually misread a bit of what you wrote initially. I originally took your comment as you saying that you thought it was unlikely he could stop stepping on his own dick long enough to actually institute tin-pot authoritarianism. After re-reading both your comments I do believe you understand the threat that we are facing. So, forgive me there for misunderstanding your position.
However, the part that scares me the most is the fact that all these legal proceedings are going to turn him into a cornered animal. Every vindictive, vitriolic, nihilistic, violent part of him is going to be ratcheted up to a truly unhinged level that I believe will fracture his personality. Once he is made to feel vulnerable he will lash out at everything and everyone that made him have to go through one fucking second of cognitive dissonance.
The most dangerous people are the ones who are capable of being truly dishonest with themselves.
I believe that's the tl;dr summary of the article in the OP.
There is a bluprint out there in the open :
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025
Some people are seriously planning to take down US democracy...
Right. I didn't address this in my comment because I wanted to focus on Trump himself. Whatever Trump does, he'll likely use this plan to destroy our democracy.
If Trump gets into office again, our best hope would be that 1) the institutions can survive Project 2025 and 2) Trump and Co are too incompetent to enact their plans. I wouldn't want to bet my life on either of these, though. A better hope is to work to keep Trump (and anyone else like him) away from any position of power all the way from President to city councilman.
Seems like a good reason for the party to adapt in order to secure as much participation from as many likeminded voters as possible.
"Not Trump" is not as universally convincing as I fear the party is assuming. It's sufficient for you and I, to be sure.
Reagan started to get in to ideas of unitary executive theory and Bush was another proponent. The founders often debated, famously Hamilton, what the "executive" role actually meant for the office, and it was left vague as a lot of their ideas were. In the context of the time you had landowners being allowed to vote, the whole point of the government was basically to ensure no states had power over any other, then over time the executive branch developed and expanded and presidents had to see what that meant testing limits over time. I don't think this plan would be successful and if it were it would probably be bad by virtue of who would be in power.
Landowning was never a requirement on the federal level in the US. It was allowed to be a requirement for the states for a little while, few states bothered and the ones that did gave it up.
Look in to the men's suffrage movement, Vermont, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky were the only three states to have full adult suffrage for white males before 1800.
18th century property qualifications:
Connecticut: an estate worth 40 shillings annually or £40 of personal property
Delaware: fifty acres of land (twelve under cultivation) or £40 of personal property
Georgia: fifty acres of land
Maryland: fifty acres of land and £40 personal property
Massachusetts Bay: an estate worth 40 shillings annually or £40 of personal property
New Hampshire: £50 of personal property
New Jersey: one-hundred acres of land, or real estate or personal property £50
New York: £40 of personal property or ownership of land
North Carolina: fifty acres of land
Pennsylvania: fifty acres of land or £50 of personal property
Rhode Island and Providence Plantations: personal property worth £40 or yielding 50 shillings annually
South Carolina: one-hundred acres of land on which taxes were paid; or a town house or lot worth £60 on which taxes were paid; or payment of 10 shillings in taxes
Virginia: fifty acres of vacant land, twenty-fives acres of cultivated land, and a house twelve feet by twelve feet; or a town lot and a house twelve feet by twelve
I wouldn't put it passed him to try to weasel into a 3rd (or indefinite 2nd) term but given the rampant nepotism and astonishing loyalty I think it more likely his family will all start rotating into that role and we'll see a Trump on the ballot for the next 2-3 decades. Plenty of time to slow cook that frog.
He's already said this kind of thing. He admired the Chinese President for declaring himself President For Life and he said that he deserves a third term for the "Russia Russia Russia investigation." His age might play into him actually going for a third term. He'd be 82 in January 2029 - assuming his lifelong bad health habits didn't get to him first.
I could see him trying to appoint his successor, but none of his kids are as "charismatic" as he is. (Using the term "charismatic" loosely to describe the hold he has on some people. Not sure what else to call that.) A Trump Dictatorship could oddly result in a civil war as we get Trump Jr MAGAs fighting Greene MAGAs or Lake MAGAs etc. All while the tattered remnants of the Democrats try to use the chaos to right the ship.
The Supreme Court will find a way. Clarence Thomas will get a new boat.
They will just say the first term or second term doesn't count because he wasn't elected he won the EC.
Trump governed like a milquetoast Republican and most of what he did the Democrats haven't undone, the tax breaks for corporations, the tariffs, the immigration policy, the fucking wall.
The rhetoric is part of the hyperreal spectacle of politics and it's hilarious how so many people still clutch pearls over his insane personality even after his first term. His entire political brand was created by provoking outrage and he continues to do this. The threat to democracy is the Republican party and people forget how they already stole the 2001 election, and how fraudulent American elections historically were. The "fair" election is a very recent thing, like last 50 years. Some of the stories from the past are hilarious too like literally paying people to get on busses and carting them to polling stations.
You don't go from 0 to dictatorship in a couple years. You have to wait for slow burn of propaganda, build support with appointees, etc. You can't judge this from the first term.
I think the biggest factor isn't going to be Trump himself. If it was just him, he might trip over his own feet and keep himself from instituting a democracy. (Not that I'd bet our democracy on that happening.)
The bigger danger are the people who would be (and already are) working behind the scenes. I think they were caught by surprise in 2016 - both in Trump's win and in his willingness to go further towards dictatorship than they even hoped to achieve. They weren't prepared and we got the chaotic slip that did damage, but didn't result in President Trump For Life.
This time, they're prepared. If they get into power via a second Trump presidency, our best hope is that the institutions are sturdier than they seem to be and possibly that Trump is even more clumsy - to the point of sabotaging his own team's plans. That's not a very big hope, though. It's about the same level as saying "I'm completely broke so I'll spend my last few dollars on this lottery ticket to become rich." Could it happen? Sure, but it's much more likely that you/America lose.
And even if we somehow, miraculously, emerge from a trump presidency with our democracy intact, it would be on life support. As you said, you don't go from 0 to Dictatorship. Trump would have turned the dial enough that some future Trump figure would get into power and turn it the rest of the way.
The only way to ensure that our democracy is safe is to keep Trump - and everyone supporting him - as far from power as possible.
all trump has to do is more and more fashy shit while not being physically stopped, by the courts, democrats or the American people. you can say "he can't do that" all you want but if he does it and isn't punished then yes he can do that, whatever "that" is no matter how extreme, and you are letting him though inaction
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The fact that many Americans might prefer other candidates, much ballyhooed by such political sages as Karl Rove, will soon become irrelevant when millions of Republican voters turn out to choose the person whom no one allegedly wants.
Until now, Republicans and conservatives have enjoyed relative freedom to express anti-Trump sentiments, to speak openly and positively about alternative candidates, to vent criticisms of Trump’s behavior past and present.
Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, the Wilson administration shut down newspapers and magazines critical of the war; Franklin D. Roosevelt rounded up Japanese Americans and placed them in camps.
There is every reason to believe that active-duty troops and reservists are likely to be disproportionately more sympathetic to a newly reelected President Trump than to the “Radical Left Thugs” supposedly causing mayhem in the streets of their towns and cities.
The power shift at the federal level, and the tone of menace and revenge emanating from the White House, will likely embolden all kinds of counter-resistance even in deep-blue states, including violent protests.
As Mitt Romney recounts in McKay Coppins’s recent biography, Republican members of Congress contemplating voting for Trump’s impeachment and conviction feared for their physical safety and that of their families.
The original article contains 6,008 words, the summary contains 201 words. Saved 97%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
If a fascist dictatorship in the US is "inevitable," it's only so because liberals won't actually lift a finger to stop it.
There are plenty of organizations out there working to make sure this doesn't happen. You could sing up for one of them instead of spreading doom and gloom on the internet. The change starts with you.
Such as?
There are literal hundreds. You can google "ways to get involved with elections" and you will get so many your eyes will water. I'm so tired of people acting like this is impossible to do and then complaining about how nothing ever changes. Go phone bank. Go canvass. Go talk to people.
No Off Years
Sister District Project
Swing Left
Democratic Volunteer Center
In other words... just more of the same stuff that allowed fascists all this power in the first place.
Do tell... where were you when antifa was actually doing something about fascism in the streets a few years back? Heckling from the sidelines like a good little liberal, perhaps?
And how far did they get? What meaningful legislation came from it? Protests are needed but so are all kinds of other action. Feel free to sit on the sidelines and spread doom and gloom because elections aren’t important, apparently.
The laws favor the fascists, liberal - they even have a fascist institution to enforce it... the police.
If you think you can vote fascism away I don't think you really realize what fascism even is. How far the fascist element (the fascist element that is so thoroughly entrenched in US society that you and your fellow liberals even consider it "normal") gets depends on how threatened the political elites and their corporate benefactors are by the prospect of working-class revolt - an electoral process means nothing to fascists or the capitalists that fund them.
Vote for whomever you wish. But if voting - or getting others to vote - is the only thing you are willing to do to oppose them, it means you are not prepared to do much at all.
liberals rolling over for fascism is the reason they're winning. the moment enough liberals draw a line in the sand and hold firm is when it stops.
Liberals rolling over for fascism is the only way fascists win. There simply is no other way fascists can win.
Is there a way of filtering US politics on here?
Read the sidebar. This magazine is for US politics.
On Lemmy!
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When does this brinkmanship dilemma stop occurring? How long are dems gonna get a blank check to spit in our faces because republicans are a looming threat? Is MAGA gonna be gone in 2028? 2032? When is the income gap gonna stop accelerating? Or emissions? When are houses gonna be affordable, or education? What about the situation is supposed to improve if dems win 2028?
Voting for local elections is more important than president. Some flavor of socialist could win a local election. You are fooling yourself if you think a socialist could win presidency in the upcoming election.
Also why should Democrats care about someone that doesn't vote? What you want them to lose 2 votes for you...continuing to not vote?
Who said anything about not voting?
Voting records? I don't know you, you don't know me. Great 😃👍 most people don't vote. You play football, you're going to get concussed. You involve yourself with politics, you're going to have to come to terms with people doing things you don't want done. You're the only you. Other people close to you won't have 100% the same politics. Waiting till you clone yourself will solve nothing.
If you want to make the changes that you want you'll need to get people who don't vote to vote. If all that happens is they vote during the presidency and know nothing about anyone else, then they are probably going to at best vote down ballot. Dems are better than Republicans. If my only choice is between Dems and Republicans, I'm going to vote Democrat. There was an election recently that I voted in. The only vote that was happening was for mayor. It was between Dems and Republican. There is no alternative.
Winging about how much the Dems suck is going to motivate no one. People aren't even going to get angry enough at the Dems when you say they suck to do anything. They're not going to protest, they're not going to vote, they're not going to get involved. You are at best wasting your breath when you say the sky is blue.
Argue for mandated voting. Argue for something different than first past the post. Argue for a politician. Hell, argue for a fascist takeover so debate bros can "dunk" on you, they're at least doing more that what you've put here.
The things you complain about will keep happening until you DO something. Argue about doing something.
It sounds like this rambling doesnt involve me.
im voting for someone that supports ranked choice.
Which would be who? For what position?
If the answer is "no one" then why should any elected person care about you?
Why should they care if they can safely take your vote for granted no matter what they do?
Have you ever voted in a primary? That's where decisions are made. Once you get to the "actual" election, then no there are no real choices.
probly Jill Stein. Unless someone better that also supports ranked choice or proportional representation shows up.
I'm not saying biden has a better aggregate stance. I am saying you have a chance in a liberal government. But you don't in a conservative one.
You're spinning your wheels, and you're going to go nowhere. Making people only pay attention to president is one of the best psyops
::: spoiler spoiler
(no evidence, it's just funnier to believe)
::: that the Dems made so people like you vote so they stay in power.
I seriously thought you had a local candidate who was going to push for that. There have been several local elections where they had ran on and implemented something besides first past the post system.
If you want change in a system this big there are only 2 routes. Slow and voting local so your party gains steam, or violence. I'm not going to advocate for violence.
What do you think the outcome of voting for her is going to be.
LOL, she's running as Green Party again. If you vote for Stein in the general, that's basically a vote for Republicans.
You get downvoted for actually expecting something from your vote. I’m sorry some 1/100000000 chance of a president becoming a dictator isn’t going to make me want to vote for someone who doesn’t want to fix economic problems for the middle class. Do better and winning the presidency would be a cakewalk do the bare minimum and possibly lose to Donald Trump.
Democrats would rather lose and have someone to blame than try to win voters over.