I thought I could take this down after the election, apparently not.
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I’m physically ill by this result, but this isn’t an option. You can’t save democracy by discarding democracy.
Trump could do it because he’s a fascist - he wants to discard democracy. A healthy system would have checked him not just then, but barred him from running again. We haven’t had a healthy system in a long time.
Trump himself isn’t fascist. Though he’s surrounded by them and I do fear them.
At a minimum, we need to discard useless language. “Fascist” failed to work in this election. Its been overused and/or the Republicans have built up mental defenses against it. It always was a bit of a stretch argument as the NeoNazi group is constantly berated even by Republicans.
The correct word is likely Authoritarian Social Darwinists (which is close to fascism in many important ways, including racism, superiority, smugness, purity of gene pools, etc. etc.). But I’m thinking its time we discarded “Fascist” and seriously moved forward and try to advance our linguistic political tools.
It doesn’t matter what you call them, they’ll take that and wear it proudly. They have to publicly swear their allegiance to the in-group.
Hillary was right to call them deplorables.
Biden was right to call them garbage.
Godwin was right to call them Nazis.
Everyone was right to call them fascists.
They do not care.
This is a pretty naive take. The remaining dregs that passed for democracy here were extinguished a few hours ago. There’s nothing even resembling a democracy left here. The only elections we’ll have now will be show elections, if even that. Therefore, definitionally, we can no longer save democracy through democracy.
But if I’m being honest saving democracy in the US isn’t really all that high up on my list of priorities at this point. We’re facing down an exacerbated Gaza genocide, another in Ukraine, then Moldova, and domestically, the genocide LGBT people in general, and trans women in particular. Not to mention the inevitable murder of Trump’s political opponents and journalists critical of his regime. We’re pretty firmly into the “any means necessary” zone.
E: minor word choice change to reduce repetition.
E2: Fix typos and spelling errors
Egos as big as Elon, Trump, RFK Jr. and others cannot work together for long.
The infighting will absolutely happen. The reigns of power only allow one grifter to be king above all others.
The Republican Party now needs to reward Crypto, Tech, Military-Industrial complex, Trump’s teams, Religious vote and more. It’s easier to keep unified before you have power, but inevitably now that the Democrats are defeated… Their egotistical selves are setting their eyes onto their next prizes.
They will be satisfied with various positions of power for a few months at best. RFK Jr. Really doesn’t want to run the CDC, Musk doesn’t want to make the bureaucracy efficient. They will grow bored of their positions.
Sure and while they play around, those genocides I mentioned will still happen. And when their regime collapses, the chaos will kill even more people. This must be prevented.
Too late to prevent now.
Democrats refusing to give power now will forever destroy Democracy. The only hope we have is to give power to Trump and hope he doesn’t break it too much.
As others noted: it’s a one sided risk. Trump doesn’t care about the future of Democracy. Democrats do care.
I expect that most Republicans, despite voting for Trump stupidly, also care about Democracy.
We have likely lost not only the electoral college vote this time around, but even the Popular Vote. It’s a blowout. There’s no excuses on a Democracy perspective.
I am a major Ukraine supporter. I was for Harris and everything. But now I’m worried about far more local issues. This is a resounding defeat of my trust of my fellow Americans, my coworkers, etc etc.
But we are not the ones in power. The election was a blowout in the wrong direction. Even if Jack Smith arrests Trump tomorrow what is that supposed to accomplish??
Wow, someone more cynical than I am.
That’s historically not true. Many interim governments do dissolve successfully after fulfilling their purpose. I’d expect such an interim government to last a decade, two tops while the constitution and judiciary is unfucked.
As I said upchain, democracy really isn’t at the top of my priority list right now. Preventing 3-4 additional genocides is.
Yeah no. The median republican voter only cares about furthering their hate, and seeing the people hey don’t like hurt. Remember “He’s hurting the wrong people!”?
I don’t think a non-Democracy or otherwise forced interim government can stand today. There’s no legal basis and you’re basically asking for Biden to just perform a coup and hand the reigns of power to someone.
I mean, I guess I appreciate your gusto but that’s not gonna work.
There’s rarely, if ever, a legal basis for an interim government. Just like there’s no provision in the constitution for replacing it, this is basically how it’s done. And honestly I’d rather Biden keep the reigns for a little while at least. Harris is the obvious choice there, but she’s a too right wing for my tastes.
You’re missing an ego: Putin. He has Kompromat on all of them. See Unger’s book American Kompromat.
Look I’m desperate for some cope right now, but the best the left has ever been was in resisting Trump in the streets from 2016 to 2020.
The issue was that after four tiring years of struggle, we handed responsibility over to the electoral process. And as is tradition, the Democrats fucking blew it.
Build back better? what a fucking joke. Pass literally any bill that makes a material impact to people’s lives and this election result doesn’t happen.
Yeah leftists really aren’t going to help here. There will never be a leftist revolution in the US. Hell I doubt there’ll ever be a serious leftist political movement at all. The only remaining hope I have is that the democrats will decide that preventing Trump is more important than high-roadism. But even that is an exceedingly slim hope.
I mean, maybe if Harris would have appealed to the left, we would be having a different conversation today. Biden making in roads to the left out him over the top in 2020; Harris blew those bridges up in 2024 to campaign with Liz Cheney.
There is a real left movement in this country that started at occupy Wall Street and has been here ever since. It’s not big, but it’s sufficient to make important differences here and there. BLM/ antifacsism/ progressivism, all threads of the same strand.
I guess you’re probably right, but honestly I’m not sure I can put my faith in a group that can’t even hold their nose over an elementary application of the trolley problem.
You just don’t get who or why people are advocating for those positions.
Leftists asking for better from the candidate are doing so because they perceive issues like genocide, money in politics as deeply unpopular, and issues like M4A and paid family leave as popular. Your blaming the wrong group.
It’s Harris apologists saying you just have to plug your nose this election who lost the game for all of us, because that gave Harris cover for staying out on some deeply unpopular issues.
You (and others, not trying to single you out) think you know what you are doing with your ‘trolley problem’ perception/ analysis of this issue, but you are wrong to the point of self deception. You might consider why that is.
Multiple groups can be at fault. (As a mostly unrelated aside, if I were to blame a single entity, it would be Rutherford B. Hayes). And TBH, Leftists who failed to hold their nose are probably the least to blame, they’re just the last ones in the line of responsibility. Ultimately Harris bears the most responsibility (at least recently) for her failure of a campaign.
Care to enlighten me? I’ve never been the brightest tool in the shed, so from where I’m sitting it’s a pretty easy case of less genocide vs. more genocide.
I think this comment that I offered @Jordan_Lund makes the point well:
https://lemmy.world/comment/13236115
and reposted here:
If you can’t put out the effort to understand why people think the things that they do, if you can’t empathize with people you don’t agree with, you’ll never understand them sufficiently to change their minds.