this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2025
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No Stupid Questions

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You'd think a hegemony with a 100-years tradition of upkeeping democracy against major non-democratic players, would have some mechanism that would prevent itself from throwing down it's key ideology.

Is it really that the president is all that decides about the future of democracy itself? Is 53 out of 100 senate seats really enough to make country fall into authoritarian regime? Is the army really not constitutionally obliged to step in and save the day?

I'd never think that, of all places, American democracy would be the most volatile.

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[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 15 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (5 children)

That's what 2a is supposed to be for

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[–] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 49 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (2 children)

Ah fuck you really going to make me infodump I hate you sm fr


Part 1: The Two Parties

In the 1960s Civil Rights movement a deep political polarization began which results in wealthy interests backing the Republican party more and more, President Ronald Reagan in return shifted the party away from unions and towards deregulated and low tax markets and industries, and when Democrats introduced a campaign finance reform to curb the issue in 1995 it failed but was reintroduced and passed in 2002 it furthered that divide yet again, that bill was then sued by Citizens United wealthy interests and the SCOTUS sided with Citizens United as a Partisan 5-4 decision. So now we live in a world where political divide has all of the wealthy interests backing one side whose policies are actually extremely unpopular but people are easily misled into not knowing the stances of people they are voting for, or misled on the repercussions of those actions.

Figure 1: Partisanship of Congressmen

Figure 2: Partisanship of citizens


Part 2: Legislative Requirements of the USA

The USA has steps to pass laws:

  • It gets called to vote by majority leader and passes the House of Representatives, which is capped at 435 congressmen allotted very very roughly proportional to the state populations.

  • It gets called to vote by majority leader and passes the Senate with a simple majority of 51 votes, unless a handful of senators decide to filibuster it to delay the vote indefinitely, in which case the bill gets amended with concessions and sent back to the House for yet another round of voting. Filibuster can be bypassed with 60 votes which is basically impossible due to aforementioned partisanship.

  • The president signs it into law.

Now the problem here is that to remove a congressman, the president, or a supreme court judge: you need 60 votes following a successful impeachment inquiry. So it never happens.


Part 3: Foreign Interests

Influential media from the Murdochs, the Kochs, and the CCP are constantly pushing the USA further into the grave they've been digging for 50 years. China has always been a source of cheap labor and the relationship soured greatly following the Chinese influences on Korean and Japanese elections during the time those two nations were rebuilding following the World War era and were under the watchful eye of the US Military who were a central figure in the aforementioned conflict. This divide deepened with the 1984 Tienanmen Square Massacre where cities all over China were quelled by military forces being deployed on their own people. But far from being the end of it, the Pacific was still a prime trade route where the USA sought profits, and so Chinese influence continued to spread more as the days went by.


Part 4: Where We Are Now

President Obama was denied a lifelong SCOTUS nomination in an election year, giving the nomination to Donald Trump.

Donald Trump was granted yet another lifelong SCOTUS nomination in an election year. The SCOTUS was thusly deeply conservative.

His court nominations allowed him to run for office despite not qualifying under the insurrection clause, because if the courts choose not to reverse a lower court decision that he wasn't barred from office then nobody is enforcing the law.

Billionaires bought or operated their own home made social medias in the USA, the CCP deployed TikTok campaigns to elect a fascist.

This isn't just a thing that happened which we were unprepared for. It's a thing that has been happening for decades which so many of us have been desperately attempting to stop.

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[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca -4 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

The US empire chooses to ally with any group who opposes Russia or uses mineral/oil wealth as significant public welfare enhancement instead of enriching their rulership or privatizing for cheap bribes to US national champions, and not being a US weapons customer. This already makes the US empire a demonic evil fascist force. It calling apartheid ethnostates of Ukraine and Israel "great democracies", and all elections that go against it "rigged" is an ultra fascist view. Control over colonies media is control over their democracy, and control over their people to ensure subservience of allies. Internally, to US, there is always money for the empire and the oligarchy, never for people.

The veneer of democracy and "rules based world order allies" is a BS that helps with its demonism. But removing the veneer to demand more tribute from colonies, and Americans is not change. It simply removes the emperor's veil/clothing. If voting could change anything, it would be illegal.

Trump can help Americans realize this. But if you were praising US democracy/values before this, you simply were not paying attention closely enough.

Is the army really not constitutionally obliged to step in and save the day?

The constitution is no protection against the Army. A military coup does not necessarily mean a more militarist US, or anti-American, anti-pluralist/liberty government. Asking/supporting the military to depose corrupt leaders should be based on that corruption, not looking up whether a nation's constitution permits it (they never do).

[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 77 points 1 day ago (11 children)

He knew it from the beginning. People didn't listen.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 34 points 1 day ago (1 children)

He also didn't want to be president or have his face on money. They really just ignored the dude.

[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 19 points 1 day ago

I guess ignoring Washington's wishes foreshadowed what the US would eventually become.

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[–] PanArab@lemm.ee 23 points 20 hours ago (5 children)

What’s your definition of Nazi? I would think Andrew Jackson still a worse president than Trump. And not even the Supreme Court was able to stop him

[–] Gammelfisch@lemmy.world 16 points 19 hours ago

That mofo made it to the $20 bill. Sick.

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[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 53 points 1 day ago (3 children)

The CIA can always assassinate a president who gets too far out of line, ~~like what happened to JFK,~~ but they don't tend to mind the right so much as the left.

[–] rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee 38 points 21 hours ago (5 children)

Trump spent his first term selling classified documents to enemies of the state that revealed the identities of CIA operatives and got them killed and so far they have done nothing about it. I think it's safe to say the CIA is not as scary as hollywood wants us to believe.

[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 13 points 21 hours ago

The CIA is not great at high profile assassination, their declassified documents are plenty scary though.

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[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 36 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (5 children)

Yes, the President can be impeached and removed by Congress. On the opposite side of the coin a President can veto laws passed by Congress, which Congress can override but it's harder than passing a law. The problem is when Congress also goes nazi at the same time. In that case we're fucked. In fact I think Article 97 sub-paragraph E13/W even says, "Such conditions and circumstances shall by Law constitute Fuckage."

[–] Gammelfisch@lemmy.world 6 points 19 hours ago

If the US military goes Nazi, then the USA is beyond fucked.

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[–] Professorozone@lemmy.world 7 points 17 hours ago

Apparently that's what America wants. You mean for a possible future where it's a bad thing?

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 13 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Impeachment. That's it.

But you're also forgetting that in the US states have a significant amount of power. For example the President cannot cancel elections. If a state cancels elections they just don't get counted.

There's a lot in that particular area that shields people from federal government stupidity.

[–] Soggy@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

They can ignore election results though, or fraudulently certify them.

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[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 49 points 1 day ago (10 children)

It turns out that a handful of young land-owning white men from the 1700s, born almost 200 years before the advent of game theory, didn't actually properly anticipate every way in which the political system they were designing could fail.

[–] andros_rex@lemmy.world 4 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Is it really failure by their standards? How many of them owned slaves? How many of them viewed women as essentially property?

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 4 points 12 hours ago

I mean, I think they'd have considered a civil war less than 100 years after the founding of the country to be a pretty good indication of failure.

As for the modern world, they explicitly talk about trying to design a system so that a tyrant doesn't become president. All the supposed checks and balances that were supposed to prevent that turned out to be as effective as wet tissue paper. The founders also cared a lot about the president not being corrupt, and drafted the emoluments clause(s) to prevent that, and Trump has just completely ignored those clauses. I think they'd have been pretty upset about that, and wondering why the law of the land was just being ignored.

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[–] hesusingthespiritbomb@lemmy.world 12 points 21 hours ago (3 children)

Just to be clear, your solution to saving democracy would be for the military to usurp a president who received the majority of the vote less than six months ago?

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

The military has rules limiting what they can do, especially against acting within the US, and every service member is supposed to disobey illegal orders.

[–] miridius@lemmy.world 9 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

USA hasn't been a democracy for decades. It's hard to pin it down to a certain tipping point but I'd hazard it was when you decided that corporations are people and buying politicians is free speech.

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[–] door_in_the_face@feddit.nl 4 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

Sometimes a voting population needs to be protected from the consequences of their vote, right? A good chunk of the German voting population in the 1930 voted the NSDAP and Hitler into power, and we can agree that it would have been for the best if that party and its leadership had been deposed ASAP. Now, the US isn't quite that far down the slide yet, but they're certainly slipping, and the worst part is that the checks and balances that are supposed to keep a president in line are also failing. Not to be alarmist, but we're in for a wild ride.

[–] VerifiedSource@sh.itjust.works 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Sometimes a voting population needs to be protected from the consequences of their vote

Who should have the power to make that decision?

Do you want a benevolent king at the top that can dissolve parliament, dismiss government, call for new elections, make parties illegal, and censor the press?

Or maybe have something like an electoral college?

Or the army coups, if things get too far?

The ultimate check on power is the people. A general strike, large scale protests, and occupation of public buildings can topple a government. Institutions from military, police, local government, government agencies, and so on value their positions and won’t go down with a sinking ship.

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[–] hesusingthespiritbomb@lemmy.world 5 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

Your first question is pretty philosophical. All I can say, is that most representative governments place a huge emphasis on giving the people the power to write their own collective destiny.

A military takeover based on the desires of a minority of citizens would violate that principal. I don't think any reasonable person can call it saving democracy.

[–] kadup@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

a huge emphasis on giving the people the power to write their own collective destiny.

A functional democracy is not a dictatorship of the majority, and people from the US love making this mistake. It is true that the president gets elected by a majority vote... but this person now represents everyone, including the minority that opposes them. They do not have the right to sink the ship and kill everyone because the majority thinks that's a good idea.

It is natural that their government will make decisions aligned with their voters (in theory) but they shouldn't be allowed to actively undermine the rights of everyone else.

No matter how inflated your perception of your "flawless" constitution and democracy is, this is something many countries understand pretty well and yours struggles with.

[–] door_in_the_face@feddit.nl 1 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

Yes, but it is a question that is pertinent to the situation. What do you do if a population elects someone that starts undermining their democracy? I understand that forcibly taking that person's power away is in itself anti-democratic, but if their actions are even worse, then it would be justified right? A smaller anti-democratic act to stop the larger anti-democratic effort where they're dismantling the democratic system that put them in power.

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 17 points 23 hours ago

He's just a symptom of the real problem, which is that he exposed himself as a nazi a long time ago and still got reelected.

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