The General American Politics Thread

[Tani Coyote]

The cynic in me says it boils down to politics.

Liberals want more democracy because it favors them, conservatives want less because it favors them.

The "we're a republic, not a democracy" is Americanized bullshit (particularly in right-wing circles) like no other. A republic just means a state that doesn't have a monarch, and a democracy is a state where government rests with the people. At some point "republic" came to mean "indirect democracy with restrictions on popular power" but the Devil is in the details: indirect democracy. If you want restrictions on the public will, that's why there's a constitution. So constitutional representative democracy is just as useful as "republic" if not moreso. Sure, one could argue that just as we changed the meaning of "liberal" in America, we can change the meaning of "republic" and it is political correctness to insist on the original definition of republic, but there's a key difference here.

When you use terms like "democracy" and "republic," you also end up using terms like "democratic" and "republican," which have associations with the major parties regardless of your intent. Many years ago, right-wing textbook publishers made a point to replace "democracy" and "democratic" with "republic" and "republican" in all their books. It's pretty obvious why. The idea is to entrench the term "republican" and its upper case variant as innately superior to "Democrat" from a young age. It should be no surprise these efforts are concentrated towards the South, the part of the country which has brainwashed the young for generations so as to maintain a racist order.

"US citizens can't be trusted in any form." Something tells me the morons saying this aren't aware that the people elect House and Senate members. Trusting the average person on day-to-day decisions? Of course that's a bad idea for a number of reasons. But choosing officeholders to represent them? That's perfectly valid. This is also ignoring the fact the Electors are chosen by the people. We are a representative democracy that gives a little extra weight to smaller states for their protection.

The "big states" argument continues and will always be nonsense. For the big states to dominate everyone, they would have to be a hive mind both inside and between themselves. Even under the current system, the big states dominate: a President just has to capture California, Texas, New York, and a few others... but we know it's obviously not that easy, even with winner-take-all. Under national popular vote, Democratic Texans' votes would go towards the Democratic nominee... but Republican Californians' would go towards the Republican nominee. A President ultimately would have to build a broad base of support across the nation.

Which they would do. Because for the most part, every electoral college winner - Democrat or Republican - also won the popular vote. The GOP can't fault "big states" if they lose. They need to fault the fact their leaders are terrible coalition builders.

Again, it boils down to politics. The GOP has been served well by the Electoral College twice in five elections, and they have likewise been served well by their gerrymandering in the House and the filibuster in the Senate. Of course conservatives tend to abhor democracy more than liberals, because the verdict is in: democracy is not as conductive to conservative policies.

Yes, America leans conservative as a whole. But those same conservatives also lean left on a lot of issues like gay marriage and marijuana. This country leans right, but it's more libertarian than conservative.

[KHCast]

Yeah I decided not to respond to his comment since it's clear he's going to defend it to high heaven, and he's /still/ barading me with information after hours.

I'm pretty sure you're right that he's likely republican and not a fan of democracy.

Least he's giving a well thought out response to back his point.

[Tani Coyote]

3 hours ago, KHCast said:

Yeah I decided not to respond to his comment since it's clear he's going to defend it to high heaven, and he's /still/ barading me with information after hours.

I'm pretty sure you're right that he's likely republican and not a fan of democracy.

Least he's giving a well thought out response to back his point.

I really wish right-wing people would realize it's the 2000s and not the 1800s anymore.

The Civil War settled the issue of state sovereignty, whether they like it or not. Old-fashioned ideas like opposition to judicial review, state nullification, secession, etc. are no longer current.

Of course they relish the idea of limiting democracy, because the masses do not support their (obviously infallible) worldview. But let's consider the Founders' ideas for a second: America's a very different place from when it was founded. Back then, limiting democracy had some merit, since a lot of people were illiterate, in rural locations, or otherwise poorly-informed. This doesn't sound like a good mass of people to involve in government. In practice, restricting democracy meant disenfranchising the poor and minorities, but the overall principle of limited popular control had some merit.

Nowadays, almost everyone can read, education is widespread, and technology has made it easy to both be informed and participate in politics. The Founders' concept of mob rule does not apply as strongly today, as the quality of that "mob" has changed. The online petitions, organization of protests, the slew of independent news sites... the list goes on. Democracy has a lot more merit in the present day.

If we're going with the Founders' perspective, though, let's bring out all the issues.

For starters, the military. Many of the Founders did not want a standing army, or one that was large. This was because they, as intelligent, educated men, understood the military to be what frequently destroys democracies. One could counter it's a dangerous world, and certainly there is an argument to have standing navies/air forces, but the actual army can be argued as relatively unnecessary. Evidence? We survived most of our history without a large standing force; we could simply call on volunteers and militia in times of need.

As an extension of that, guns. The Founders didn't really argue in favor of "self-defense" or the like. Their idea was that there should be large, well-trained militias that could check a small standing Army. Up until the last decade, even the Supreme Court used this interpretation; to argue for self-defense with the Second Amendment is to be an activist judge, because the writings show this is not the original intent. The Founders did not want just anyone with guns, only those who were trained to use them as part of a larger force. The NRA, likely in willful ignorance, doesn't seem to acknowledge the Founders would probably be very big advocates of gun control (in the sense of background checks, regular training, etc.).

Let's get to the key idea, though. The Framers had two goals in mind when they crafted the Constitution: limiting tyranny (the ideal), and bringing the 13 colonies on board (the reality). Things like the three-fifths compromise and Congress worked to distribute power between the big and small states so neither could dominate the other. The Electoral College was born of this same desire. Leaving a lot of power to the states served to reduce the power of the federal government to become tyrannical as well as get all 13 states on board. Long Senatorial terms kept the Senate collegiate, while the frequently-shifting House let the people keep a check on the power of elites. The House, Senate, Supreme Court, and President all answered to different constituencies, and this prevented any faction from becoming too powerful.

Interesting idea, though: the states decide how their electors vote. They can choose to give them to the popular vote winner, as many states are currently agreeing to do. What will the "federation of sovereign states" argument do in light of this? They have to accept it, because now the sovereign states are deciding they want a popular vote. They will no doubt fall back on the "republic" nonsense, ignoring that the Founders' disdain for democracy was partially justified given the circumstances. They will argue that the Constitution should be amended rather than using the workaround, even though it is up to the states how to apportion their electoral votes by that same Constitution's wording. States that are required to have democratic governments.

We already effectively have a popular vote for President, it just gets weird sometimes due to how the seats are apportioned. The real sin with the Electoral College, though, is the role of voter suppression: there are millions of people who can't vote right now due to voter ID laws or felon voting laws. If all these people could vote, there is no doubt as to where elections would tilt: liberal and Democratic. There is a clear conflict of interest with the the electoral setup. It is in in liberals' favor to eliminate the Electoral College, voter ID laws, and felon voting laws, while it is in conservatives' interest do the opposite. Conservatives have to fall back on how horrible democracy is, or what the Founders' intent was, because they have the tough task of justifying the fact turnout doesn't tend to favor them (but they still love to cite the public will when it lines up with them).

Overall, though. The "Framers' Intent" argument is great and all, but I can't help but interpret it as an egotistical "I'm smarter than all these sheep so I don't want them having power." Pride is the greatest of all sins indeed.

[KHCast]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/2016/11/24/793903b6-8a40-4ca9-b712-716af66098fe_story.html

 

If this is to be taken as legit...So Russia apparently helped spread and create fake news on the US aimed towards putting Hilary in a bad light. Interesting how now Russia seems to admitting a lot of suspicious involvement, after trump wins, when before they were all "what? We'd never!"

[Candescence]

A fairly succinct summary of how much of a fucking slimeball Trump is.

Say what you will about Clinton or even politicians in general, but holy shit, Trump embodies everything terrible we see in politicians and dials them up to eleven. I've never seen a politician backflip so quickly and so easily, if this was the Olympics Trump would be winning gold medals and breaking world records with ease.

Fuck this guy.

[Tani Coyote]

http://www.dailywire.com/news/10898/2018-mid-terms-could-be-really-bad-democrats-lets-frank-camp

From a conservative author. He says that while Democrats are playing defense in the 2018 Senate race, the GOP shouldn't pull a Clinton and take victory as a given.

The trend is overwhelmingly for the President's Party to lose seats in the midterms: only 3 of 43 midterms since 1842 have broken this trend. The most recent was 2002, and that's when America was extremely confident Bush was doing the best job to protect us.

The real clincher though, is Trump and Clinton will not be running. Trump will not be generating enthusiasm anymore, nor will Clinton being turning off a lot of people. This means the surprise takes like Pennsylvania are unlikely to repeat themselves.

But above all, however, what happens hinges on Trump's performance. He's likely to lose seats either way, but if he does horribly or is assumed to be doing so, he's going to get hurt hard. The Republicans may not lose control of the House or Senate, but those many Governor and state legislatures are up for grabs and in the long run, those are the real prize.

Fortunately the Democrats have been planning aggressive campaigns in key state races since July. Obama's pledged to give his support in the midterms, which could be quite huge if his approval continues to hover around the upper 50% range as it is now. It will be a hellish midterm though: the Democrats have to play defense in the Senate in many red states, and the House has been thoroughly gerrymandered.

The Democrats need to have a net gain of 22 seats in the House in 2018 to gain control. This sounds easy enough, but here's the issue: only 47 House seats are competitive. The Democrats already took most of the blue-leaning districts (it looks like they only have 3 that they didn't), so they have to win not only every single swing district, but several red-leaning as well. Trump has to fail, and fail badly, for the House to flip. Either that or there's a tidal wave of Democrats turning out or relocating to red districts.

10 hours ago, Candescence said:

A fairly succinct summary of how much of a fucking slimeball Trump is.

Say what you will about Clinton or even politicians in general, but holy shit, Trump embodies everything terrible we see in politicians and dials them up to eleven. I've never seen a politician backflip so quickly and so easily, if this was the Olympics Trump would be winning gold medals and breaking world records with ease.

Fuck this guy.

And the worst part is, better the opportunist with few real views than the hardline right-winger like Pence. Barring absurd Democratic gains that would make impeaching both Trump and Pence viable and enable giving the Presidency to a Democrat, he's the lesser of two evils. We really have to hope for populism to do its part to limit the damage he can do.

16 hours ago, KHCast said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/2016/11/24/793903b6-8a40-4ca9-b712-716af66098fe_story.html

If this is to be taken as legit...So Russia apparently helped spread and create fake news on the US aimed towards putting Hilary in a bad light. Interesting how now Russia seems to admitting a lot of suspicious involvement, after trump wins, when before they were all "what? We'd never!"

The NSA Director himself has said there's strong evidence of Russian hacking and interference with the election, so misinformation would just be part of the package.

[KHCast]

GOP defeat a measure that would protect gay rights 

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/amid-shouts-of-shame-house-gop-defeats-gay-rights-measure/#.WDhMxluFUTN.facebook

 

welp. How much more are people gonna tell LGBT to stop "overreacting"?

Edit: surprise, I'm already getting people telling me I shouldn't be concerned or worried since even though this passed house, "it's not legal law" and has other hurdles to pass. Almost like they're intentionally ignoring that this is even a thing in the first place, tells a lot about the house in charge of the country essentially, and is a good indication even if it doesn't become law, that minorities like LGBT  shouldn't expect to be comfy.

[Tani Coyote]

It's certainly a positive that it is from May. The fact there won't be an Obama veto in a few weeks, though, leaves room for anxiety.

http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/lgbt-amendment-succeeds-second-vote

But good news: it actually ended up passing.

I have a list of all the votes.

We have 43 Republicans who voted yes to inclusion. The following Republicans who voted yes did not win re-election:

Heck (NV),  Jolly, and Dold. That means 3 of those moderates are gone, but they were all replaced with Democrats. All the while, 3 Democrats lost their seats to the Republicans this election, so it balances out.

So in short, we have 194 Democrats backed by 40 Republican swing votes. That's more than enough to limit the excesses of the GOP House in the Trump years. The magical number in the House is 218, so that means that so long as the Democrats can find 24 allies, the worst of the GOP will not get far.

On the other hand... without the threat of a Presidential veto, there's no telling how many GOP members will cease being willing to cooperate on LGBT issues. Above all, now is a time to be grateful for the Libertarian streak within the GOP. It may still enable racial stratification and the like, but the moderate Republcians in the Senate and House are less concerned with morals and more with economics, and this mitigates the damage that can be done to minorities.

Just as we had to pick our poison with Trump and Clinton, we have to do that with the GOP. Better the small government Libertarians who still like rolling back the police state and increasing oversight in elections versus the conservative Republicans with their theocracy lite and voter suppression.

[Patticus]

23 minutes ago, Noelgilvie said:

We have 43 Republicans who voted yes to inclusion. The following Republicans who voted yes did not win re-election:

Heck (NV),  Jolly, and Dold. That means 3 of those moderates are gone, but they were all replaced with Democrats. All the while, 3 Democrats lost their seats to the Republicans this election, so it balances out.

So in short, we have 194 Democrats backed by 40 Republican swing votes. That's more than enough to limit the excesses of the GOP House in the Trump years. The magical number in the House is 218, so that means that so long as the Democrats can find 24 allies, the worst of the GOP will not get far.

That's a nice thought, but Politico had an opinion piece today that sent a bit of a chill through me, essentially positing the opposite scenario: That there simply aren't enough moderates within the GOP to keep Trump in check as Reagan once was, because the nature of the GOP has changed these past few decades. And also that even without a mandate, Trump stands on the precipice of changing Washington radically, and in ways that I personally find disturbing. An excerpt:

Quote

There was, however, another restraint on Reagan: the nature of the Republican Party. Yes, he’d vanquished the still-significant forces of moderates and liberals within his party. But a look at the GOP Senate caucus back in 1981 shows just how different the party was back then. At least 15 Republican senators—Charles Percy of Illinois, Howard Baker of Tennessee, Mark Hatfield and Bob Packwood of Oregon, Charles McC. Mathias of Maryland, Lowell Weicker of Connecticut, William Cohen of Maine and several others—could be classified as moderates or even liberals. A wholesale assault on Great Society legislation was simply not going to win the support of these Republicans, never mind the fact that the House of Representatives was still in the hands of Democrats.

Contrast this with the Congress that Trump faces. As Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann have shown in their despairing look at Capitol Hill, the Republican Party in Congress has become a more and more homogenous, ideologically militant party, whose members’ biggest fear is being “primaried”—being seen as too willing to compromise with the enemy. It has embraced tactics, including a threat to upend the global financial system by holding the debt ceiling hostage, that would have been considered unthinkable a few years ago.

In this context, the idea of a Republican House and Senate acting as a brake on Trump seems almost fanciful. Yes, Rand Paul’s civil libertarian and anti-globalist impulses may lead him to oppose a nomination of an Attorney General Jeff Sessions or a Secretary of State John Bolton. But his would be a lonely voice—especially given the fact that the Republican base is in the hands, at least for now, of an incoming President who won by running head-on against the congressional wing of the party.

The prospects for sweeping change are even greater when you look at the Supreme Court; and here the key to change lies in the way the court has evolved in the decades since Reagan. Hard as it is to remember, there was a time when a justice’s predilections could not be predicted by the political party of the nominating president; and this was particularly true of Republican nominees. From Eisenhower through the first President Bush, a parade of justices named by GOP presidents wound up firmly on the judicial left or at least the middle: Warren, Brennan, Blackmun, Stevens, O’Connor, Kennedy, Souter. And then it changed. Staring with Clarence Thomas, every nominee has lined up exactly where the politics of the president would have suggested. Indeed, the justices have been so politically predictable that the occasional break—like Chief Justice John Roberts’ votes to uphold the Affordable Care Act—have been greeted with cries of political “treason.”

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/how-trump-can-change-washington-214475

So... yeah. Despite the 40 Republican swing votes we just saw, I'm not at all confident that they would be of much use during the Trump years, unless they truly feared being knocked off their perches in 2018 or beyond as a result of specific votes.

[Tani Coyote]

When in doubt, I think populism is going to win the day.

The broad amount of public support for gay marriage (solid majority) and anti-discrimination laws (slight majority) means they're not issues moderate Republicans are going to make a conservative stand on. That explains the voting behavior on the amendment described above.

On everything economic, though, I can certainly see them not really getting in the way. The economy really is the biggest issue to make your stand on, and this is an election that was decided as much by economics (i.e. Trump resonating with the working class whites in key states, no matter how delusional his proposals are) as other factors.

Then you have the GOP members of Congress saying that they're not going to rubber stamp a massive infrastructure bill like Trump proposes if it's not paid for. We may be in luck: they're almost as willing to sabotage him as they were Obama. Trump is proposing a massive investment, but the problem lies in paying for it, and that's where the "coalition" that might form behind it comes apart.

There's also the question of spine. Democrats have plenty of reason to be obstructionist. The last 8 years have made it apparent that few politicians get in trouble for repeatedly saying no to the President... so as bad precedent as it is for the Democrats to play the same game, I can't say I'm entirely opposed. We need to establish that obstruction will be returned in kind. The government shall come apart at the seams if the GOP repeats what it did to Obama.

Overall though. While Trump seems strong, a lot of his support banked on his economic policies. GOP moderates will absolutely fall in line behind him on the economy unless they have good reason not to, but they shouldn't be counted out on social issues. People focus on the bigotry in the Trump base, but ultimately a good deal of his appeal was the promise of jobs. Whether he and the GOP deliver on that promise is going to make or break them in 2018 and 2020.

[KHCast]

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/the-dark-rigidity-of-fundamentalist-rural-america-a-view-from-the-inside/

an opinion piece on how the issue with democrats wasn't that we need to "understand and compromise with conservative rural white religious people in the south" 

[Tani Coyote]

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/clinton-to-follow-steins-lead-and-back-recounts-in-michigan-and-pennsylvania-campaign-attorney/

Oh snap!

There's already a recount underway in Wisconsin courtesy of Jill Stein, but now we have Clinton's campaign saying they will back recounts in Michigan and Pennsylvania if Stein feels it appropriate.

Not sure how to feel about this. Trump losing sounds nice, but on the other hand, we likely have 10 years of a stronger GOP to look forward to. President Clinton's likely to lose the midterms to the GOP, giving them even more state/federal power, and then lose re-election to whoever the GOP 2020 candidate is, with their coattails giving the GOP its most massive amount of power on the federal and state level in quite some time. They'll redistrict the House in the aftermath to keep the GOP in power for another decade in the House, so even the 2022 midterms won't do too much damage to them. The GOP held the House 6 of 8 years of Obama's Presidency, so we know how bad it is to not have it being competitive.

It's awful but... we kind of need Clinton to lose short of some miraculous realignment that probably won't come. 2020 is just too important.

[Patticus]

I really would much rather Clinton stay the loser at this point, despite the abject fear I'll be dealing with for the next 2-4 years under Trump's authoritarian administration - which hopefully will only see Scalia's SCOTUS seat filled by whatever monster Trump picks from his SCOTUS Doom Binder. A third term for the Democrats will only lead to another set of disastrous midterms in 2018, followed by an increasingly likely nightmare unfolding in 2020 - particularly if we see a "true believer" ideologue like Cruz win the Republican primaries. The one good thing about Trump is that the only things he believes in are himself and his children, which should leave him open to more policy flip-flops when his power begins to drain.

No, at this lowest of ebbs, the Democrats have to spend some time out of power to sap the GOP of theirs, and get some solid, valuable gains in 2018 and 2020. It's the only way forward at this point. I think the only ways the Democrats would benefit from a third term is if several SCOTUS justices decide to take that opportunity to die or retire, and/or if there is some kind of economic miracle for the white working class and urban poor. I don't see Clinton's policies really doing the latter though.

[Tornado]

So is the Cuban embargo finally going to be dropped for real now?

[KHCast]

With Castro gone, hopefully things can get moving. But I get the impression it's still gonna be complicated the relations with Cuba.

[Tani Coyote]

I think with Castro's death the issue will ebb, yes. The fact relations were normalized at all indicates that the Batista-loving types have lost a lot of their power in the USA. Personalities really help define the issues - just as people focused on Clinton and Trump over the broader Parties, I think the loss of Castro removes a visible enemy that kept people against reconciliation. Fidel is the leader of the Revolution, El Presidente, the man who let Soviet arms in and caused the Missile Crisis, etc. With his death, Cuba doesn't have a visible face for older people to despise. I imagine a good chunk of them were like "who?" when they heard Raul Castro was being given more and more power. The same way a lot of Americans probably didn't know who Obama was in 2008, but now he's a household name. It really boils down to the personalities.

I feel it important to bring up Batista because a lot of Castro detractors ignore that the guy he overthrew wasn't exactly Jesus Christ.

[Patticus]

Such moving, that class, many presidentials.

Trump, we learned during the election, commissioned at least one exploratory business expedition to Cuba. So if he thinks his business will gain from the embargo ending, he'll almost certainly push for it. Another White House-Congress flash point in the making?

[Tani Coyote]

In fairness, with Trump, I think we've learned less is more whenever he speaks.

The more he talks, the chance of him saying something incredibly stupid approaches 1.

He's going to find that being President means you can't be a performer. He's already in hot water over throwing a fit over Pence being booed (only to swiftly retract his comments without deleting the original Tweet), so it shows he's in for a fun time. Like many Republicans he is calling for "unity," which is code for "obedience."

People called George W. Bush an idiot, but at least he had a fairly good grasp of what he should and should not say (most of his gaffes consist of poor word choices or just seem silly, as opposed to Trump's). Trump's not even President yet and he's being eyebrow raising.

[Tani Coyote]

Running some numbers based on the NY Times' Election Map.

Trump won Pennsylvania by 68,000 votes, while the Republican Senator there won by 100,000. Now, assuming party-line votes (a big assumption), this is the only Senate seat Clinton would have carried. Wisconsin voted solidly for the GOP Senator despite how close the Presidential race was.

In short, President Clinton would have gone into the first half of her term with a Senate that was 49-51, and a House that may have had a few more Democratic seats. She would have been the first President since George H.W. Bush whose Party didn't control at least one chamber of Congress at the start of the term. People loved the idea of her as a third Obama term, but my God, she would have had it even worse. The GOP ruling one House was enough to leave Obama limping, can you imagine both under Clinton? Bernie's platform would have been all for nothing, and I have no doubt she'd have moved towards a lot of conservative policies as her husband did. In spite of that, she no doubt would have lost seats in the midterms and re-election in 2018 and 2020, leaving the GOP with control of the federal and state governments to such a scale it would look like the period after Reconstruction.

Looking at the cards on the table. While Trump's term is likely to be bad news for a lot of people, it would have been even worse had Clinton won. We'd have gotten 4 years of relative peace due to her veto power, only to face a near-unstoppable Republican juggernaut in the 2020s. Any Democratic President who took power in that period would have been a repeat of Obama due to the House staying Republican.

Liberalism, by some stroke of cosmic irony, stands to benefit enormously from someone like Trump. If we're lucky, he'll gain a reputation on par with Hoover's and help shatter the GOP's legitimacy for decades. Probably not, but it'd certainly be nice. Either way, the Democrats need to work on putting an FDR-like figure out there who can quickly recapture the Rust Belt before Trump and the GOP make real progress there.

Strangely enough, for the Democrats to win, they had to lose.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Which is all the more reason people shouldn't be so hysteric over the present when things seem bleak. It still gets me when people treat the presidency as an all powerful position when it really only has 1/3 of the absolute power an overall government really has--yeah, sure a president can command the military, but he doesn't have access to the money that funds it.

 

[Patticus]

Unless Trump fires every top general and the Joint Chiefs and replaces them with lackey types, I don't think we have any cause to worry regarding the military.

[Tani Coyote]

Now's a good a time as any to wheel out the fact the United States is the only pre-1945 democracy that has never been overthrown or destroyed by foreign invasion.

Seriously. That's a damned good bragging point. Lincoln, FDR, and Bush all were extremely powerful Presidents and even they couldn't do it. And Bush likely would have been the most able to, given how most of the population was wrapped around his finger for several years.

Between a strong democratic tradition, strong federalism (the fact the states are giving the finger to the feds on drugs is evidence enough of this), moderates, the sheer size and diversity of the country, and Trump's very slim mandate, he has a tough case to become dictatorial. The fact is that even if it was all campaign talk, he has pissed a lot of people off. His rollbacks after his victory indicate a lack of any real belief system, which is going to make people distrust him.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

1 minute ago, Noelgilvie said:

Now's a good a time as any to wheel out the fact the United States is the only pre-1945 democracy that has never been overthrown or destroyed by foreign invasion.

Seriously. That's a damned good bragging point. Lincoln, FDR, and Bush all were extremely powerful Presidents and even they couldn't do it. And Bush likely would have been the most able to, given how most of the population was wrapped around his finger for several years.

Between a strong democratic tradition, strong federalism (the fact the states are giving the finger to the feds on drugs is evidence enough of this), moderates, the sheer size and diversity of the country, and Trump's very slim mandate, he has a tough case to become dictatorial. The fact is that even if it was all campaign talk, he has pissed a lot of people off. His rollbacks after his victory indicate a lack of any real belief system, which is going to make people distrust him.

Maybe I'm just being cynical, but I frankly think that even if Trump isn't capable of being a dictator (I'm personally ambiguous about that), it doesn't really change the fact that people did vote him in, which really says quite a lot about the type of people in the country. Eventually those types of people might do something so drastic that our democracy ceases to be and becomes a dictatorship. It may not be now, it may not be until centuries later, but it will happen eventually. America might be one of the longest lasting democracies in existence, but that doesn't mean it's going to last forever. No nation/power has ever done so in history and I don't expect America to be any different, regardless of the foresight of our founders.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

2 hours ago, Patticus said:

Unless Trump fires every top general and the Joint Chiefs and replaces them with lackey types, I don't think we have any cause to worry regarding the military.

Even then, you forget that Congress has a say in that as well--Trump can't nominate generals and Joint Chiefs without Senate confirmation, and it goes without saying that (not disregarding our military's failures) anyone in the US high command would have to have a lot of experience, so even if they were lackey types I doubt we'd even have to slightly worry about that.

Only thing we should be concerned is Trump somehow using the military domestically to deal with average threats that the police and FBI can take care of, but even that's too unbelievable to see happening given the consequences that would entail.

Now unless Congress actually approves of all this, then...

1 hour ago, SenEDtor Missile said:

Maybe I'm just being cynical, but I frankly think that even if Trump isn't capable of being a dictator (I'm personally ambiguous about that), it doesn't really change the fact that people did vote him in, which really says quite a lot about the type of people in the country. Eventually those types of people might do something so drastic that our democracy ceases to be and becomes a dictatorship. It may not be now, it may not be until centuries later, but it will happen eventually. America might be one of the longest lasting democracies in existence, but that doesn't mean it's going to last forever. No nation/power has ever done so in history and I don't expect America to be any different, regardless of the foresight of our founders.

Well that's just a fact of life if anything given how times change that a nation won't last forever--Great Britain has been around for 1000 years and it went from a kingdom to a constitutional monarchy, so that's not really something to be concerned with, especially in our lifetime. But it would take a lot of factors than just people in the country wanting a dictatorship to make it happen, as they'd have to fight against half the population that favors democracy, then take over seats in Congress and the Supreme Court in order to ratify a law that would grant such a dictatorship in the first place, nevermind all the legislative somersaults they'd have to do to make it happen.

Even when Civil War threatened to split the country in two, both halves were still wanting to be democracies in some shape or form. Life just adapts to the ebbs and flows.

[Tani Coyote]

3 hours ago, SenEDtor Missile said:

Maybe I'm just being cynical, but I frankly think that even if Trump isn't capable of being a dictator (I'm personally ambiguous about that), it doesn't really change the fact that people did vote him in, which really says quite a lot about the type of people in the country. Eventually those types of people might do something so drastic that our democracy ceases to be and becomes a dictatorship. It may not be now, it may not be until centuries later, but it will happen eventually. America might be one of the longest lasting democracies in existence, but that doesn't mean it's going to last forever. No nation/power has ever done so in history and I don't expect America to be any different, regardless of the foresight of our founders.

What it says is that, unsurprisingly, the average American has a "Screw you, got mine" outlook. The vast majority of people are looking for gratification, and the politician who panders to this will emerge victorious. While Clinton had more voters overall, Trump had more voters in the right places.

But more to the point. It's frankly irrational to expect, say, an unemployed unskilled white worker to vote for Clinton over Trump when Trump's promising to bring home the bacon, regardless of the negative effects he would have on non-whites. Clinton built her campaign on not being Trump (something they won't care about) and numerous lofty goals that just don't have the same appeal as "I'll give you a job." "Me and my family before you and yours" is sadly the basis of politics for most people. It takes an incredible amount of altruism (and often education) to break away from self-interest. When politics is set up so a person has to choose between themselves and someone else... they will choose themselves. It's no surprise educated people were less inclined to back Trump, not just because of liberalism, but the fact they understand that what he was promising the heartland was frankly insane. Trump would have to undo globalization, automation, and union busting to bring back the years of economic prosperity, and that's just not going to happen (especially given the people who oversaw it are the ones with all the resources; there is no "draining the swamp" when Congress is submerged in it).

We can shout and yell at them for enabling racists and/or being racist by proxy all we want, but politics belongs to realists, not idealists. And realism says you build a coalition that brings as many people in as possible, giving you a broad mandate to pursue your goals. FDR didn't turn his nose up at working with the Dixiecrats (he had plenty of reservations), and that's why he was successful. We can consider ourselves fortunate the racism of today is far more manageable than what he dealt with, because it tends to be racism of self-interest as opposed to racism of principle.

Back to the central point, though. Democracy has done well to serve the interests of most people in this country. It won't be going anywhere any time soon, even if the GOP likes to nibble away at the edges of it. The fact is Trump had a better sales pitch than Clinton in the markets where it counted, and he won accordingly. He was a better coalition builder where it counted - state by state.

The goal of a coalition is to remove the zero-sum calculation that lets people like Trump into power. Had Clinton done a better job at promising work to the Rust Belt states (and not been so blunt about saying Trump sympathy ran a high risk of making you a bigot), she might just be the one walking into the White House in January. Instead, this election made working class (I will note "working class" has to do with education, not income; a lot of liberals like to cite Trump's performance among higher incomes as evidence all his supporters are ardent bigots) whites feel like they had to choose between economic opportunity for themselves or social justice for others.