this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2024
1820 points (97.0% liked)

Microblog Memes

5771 readers
1871 users here now

A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.

Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.

Rules:

  1. Please put at least one word relevant to the post in the post title.
  2. Be nice.
  3. No advertising, brand promotion or guerilla marketing.
  4. Posters are encouraged to link to the toot or tweet etc in the description of posts.

Related communities:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Genuine question, but why is Trump even allowed to run? I vaguely know that there are some restrictions on who can become President (you have to be a certain age and be born in the USA iirc), how can it be that "Hasn't been convicted for any crimes recently" isn't a requirement?

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 week ago (2 children)

because political dissidents who are in jail for trying to overthrow a dictatorship should also be able to run. it's one of those unfortunate situations where this would be a good thing to have under an authoritarian government...

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Under an authorisation government though I assume the law would be rescinded, so it's not really protecting anybody.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I mean becoming an authoritarian government to prevent an authoritarian government doesn't really make sense

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

Sometimes you need to fight fire with fire

/s

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That's like saying we shouldn't send anyone to prison because some of them might be innocent. You have to try your best with a system but that system has to be robust enough that it cannot be abused otherwise it will end up being abused.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

If you want a system that cannot be abused then don't remove the safeguards designed to fix mistakes.

Allowed innocents to be released from prison, and allow the disenfranchised to regain their voting rights.

This is why there is always a higher power to overrule previous decisions, and when it comes to elections there is no higher power than a majority.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It probably wouldn't be allowed under an authoritarian government though...

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

of course not. the american "system of checks and balances" only works if everyone plays by the rules.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

He is literally barred from running by the Constitution because he committed an insurrection. Unfortunately the House, Senate, and Supreme Court are all somewhere between 50 and 67% Christofascist traitors.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

He literally isn't. If he literally was, he wouldn't be running. He literally should be, by a literal interpretation of the law, but that's literally not what's happened.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

I feel like they should introduce a rule that says that if you're more bronzer than flesh, you're not allowed to stand.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

It's one of those safe-guards that democracy implements that's currently having rather unintended consequences.

The reasoning is that taking away voting rights is far too easy to abuse, and if a majority of people agree with whomever you wanted to prevent from voting/getting elected then you're fucked anyway.

Which, incidentally, is looking like a very real possibility right now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That reasoning is missing a crucial part: even if you're fucked anyway, why is it still okay to put a criminal in charge? Will it improve anything? Or do we think of the "fucked" condition very differently?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Democracy isn't really meant to prevent something the majority wants.

If the majority wants a criminal to lead the country they'll elect them, or someone with the same policies, or someone who promises to put the criminal in power. The end result isn't all that different, and the latter two could be worse in some ways.

In a democracy the majority rules, and should they decide to put a lunatic in charge, well, that would be the least of your problems.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

I'm sorry but that doesn't seem logical. If you don't care about general good state of things, why would you care about the majority? People refer to democracy as a good thing because the US showed how it improves the system, lives etc.

The equality aspect itself is what I'd like to support. But when you find the majority being uneducated to understand what they are doing - something is going wrong with our assumptions about how things should work. An idiot should not be highly respected. A criminal should not have the power over people's lives. These things should have been more basic than democracy principles in everyone's mind, no?