The former president’s allies are developing a plan that would immediately deploy the military to the streets against potential demonstrators.
The former president’s allies are developing a plan that would immediately deploy the military to the streets against potential demonstrators.
It’s funny, because I’ve often wondered just how it was that Germany came to be dominated by the Nazis, because it just seems too insane to even be possible.
And now I’m watching the same basic thing play out in the US, and I still don’t understand how it’s happening, and it still seems too insane to even be possible.
Two words. American exceptionalism.
The idea that something like that can never happen here is ubiquitous. Even now, while we are literally going through a transitional stage into authoritarianism there are those that still deny it is happening. Ok, that was more than two words.
Sorry - I must not have explained myself well, because you misconstrued my point.
I don’t understand how it happened when it did in Germany. It seems too insane to happen at all.
The thing that’s significant about it happening in the US is that it’s happening right now in real time where I live, rather than almost 90 years ago in another country.
And it’s weird and unsettling that even with that - even with it happening moment-by-moment right in front if me - it still seems too insane to be possible.
It seems like there should be some context to make it at least sort of make sense - something that I wouldn’t know about because I wasn’t living in Germany in the 1930s, but that I should be able to see here and now.
But there isn’t - not as far as I can see. It’s just insanity.
There was a lot going on in Germany, but I’m not here for a full history lesson.
I just want to repeat a quote that I heard while studying the German language many years ago. This is not an exact quote, but this was the gist of it: “Hitler was just a funny, ridiculous little man. No one took him seriously, but he was very entertaining.”
This haunts me because a) Hitler and b) for a long time I’ve felt like Americans tend to elect the biggest joke or novelty candidate on the ballot when it comes to president.
The two exceptions I would see in the last 40 years are Bush 1 and Biden. Bush rode in on Reagan’s coat tails and lasted one term. Biden is the inanimate carbon rod who has been running for president since 1987 and finally got his chance.
Perot was definitely more of a joke than Clinton but I get your overall point.
First of all propaganda. When you visit SNS you can see how people get caught by convenient points of view.
In case of Germany, there was also a financial crisis. People wanted a reform, and Hitler found out that blaming it on the Jews manipulates people efficiently.
The next thing is the flaws in election. To win a government you don’t need 50% of voters. Some don’t vote, some can be gerrymandered away, and you can often win with a 30% of votes in a multi-party system.
Finally, you don’t say the quiet part loud.
The Democrats could change things now, but they aren’t.
Not doing anything is being complicit
What could they change?
What they can do is win the election in a big way, and finally discredit Trumpism.
How? What, exactly, are they not doing? They lack control of Congress and the Supreme Court. Anything Biden tries that would limit it would wind up struct down by the Federal courts. At least that’s my view, so please, by all means, explain to me how the Democrats are doing nothing and are complicit.
Biden could be using executive orders AND be pressing for more supreme court seats. That’s without mentioning the hard tac he should have taken against sinema and manchin.
So doing the same thing Trump was rightly criticized for. Gotcha.
The Senate is not filibuster proof, so making a change like adding Supreme Court seats would never fly. Speaking of that, with the razor slim majority the Dems have there, taking a hard tack against Sinema and Manchin would have been like arguing with a shotgun whose trigger had been pulled not to blow your head off. Or do you think Sinema and Manchin are idiots who didn’t know they could get their bread buttered from either side of the aisle and still come out smelling like roses? Those two held all the power and they knew it.
When fascists are knocking at the door, the time to play nice has passed.
Trump was on track to have the most executive orders in the recent past. Obama, bush and Clinton all had more.
Executive orders are an integral part of any presidency. It’s literally how each president makes their mark
So use desperate strongman measures to prop up democracy lest it would fall to the fascists?
Have you ever read about the last three democratically elected administrations of the Weimar Republic, and how they tried to use increasingly desperate measures like emergency orders to prevent the Republic from falling - which paved the way for the National Socialists to simply use the established standard and bypass Parliament completely once they were in power?