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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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 hours ago (1 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

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

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago

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?

[–] [email protected] 27 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (2 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."

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

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

Cool, but half the country supports this shit. And no, people who don't vote don't matter in this context.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 hours ago

That is by design. If the "majority" of the country wants the US to be Nazis, that is the direction it will go. That is how a representative democracy works. The flaw was the founders assuming retarded puppets would not be elected by even an uneducated public. But, they also didn't plan for automatic weapons either. Well, they sort of did, they said we should be rewriting the constitution every so many years so it can evolve with the times, but we chose to enshrine and misinterpret it like a civic bible. Oops.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

We have the Bill of Rights which limits the government’s authority.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 55 minutes ago

HAHAHAHHAHAAH

you were making a joke, right? Because Trump right now is using the constitution and the bill of rights and everything like it in his personal bathroom as toilet paper.

We're 2 days in and it's already a giant shit show world wide and we have 4 more years to go.

You better brace yourself for what's coming

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

To be fair, that's a piece of paper. If the President violates that and isn't impeached then there's nothing physical to stop him.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 59 minutes ago

This guy has been impeached twice and convicted of 34 felony charges. So we actually need something physical to stop him.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 6 hours ago (6 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Who would have thought a government created in model of a constitutional monarchy would do this?

Oh right, all the people who opposed the US constitution. People forget the Anti Federalists every time.

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

Except most of the Anti Federalists weren't arguing against the specifics of the model, they were arguing against a centralized government at all. Which had literally just failed.

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

Next you're gonna tell me a constitutional monarchy isn't a centralized government.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 hours ago

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)
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[–] [email protected] 38 points 6 hours ago (2 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.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 hours ago (2 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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

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

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

They have a long history of infiltrating foreign governments and assassinating world leaders, so what makes you think they'd have trouble doing the same in the US? Surely, during the height of the Cold War, they would've had contingencies for America electing a socialist. If they did back then, then who did what when to change that situation? Nobody's really said no to the CIA since, again, Kennedy fired Dulles and was assassinated shortly afterward.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Because they haven't? Inaction speaks pretty loudly.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Which of my questions is that supposed to answer, exactly?

They haven't because nobody's actually crossed a line. A few leaked documents isn't going to provoke an assassination, it's an extreme measure so they're not going to do it over something so trivial.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

Second Amendment.

The odds aren't in our favor.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

People who wrote the 2nd amendment cant even conceive the concept of what a fat man can do

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago

The nuke is a bad example of the sheer power of the modern American military. It's also a bit outdated. That legal mechanism was drafted when many other modern weapons and tactics were not even dreamed of. Just a couple days ago the US military announced its strongest armor yet.

But I agree: your assault rifle may save you from others with an assault rifle, but it won't do shit if the military comes for you.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

That's a non sequitur though, unless you're suggesting a tyrant would nuke the population he wanted to rule.

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