• nednobbins@lemm.ee
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    4 hours ago

    That seems unlikely, since the constitution doesn’t really include safeguards against someone like Trump.

    The founding fathers were afraid of a King (at least some of them were). They put all kinds of limits on the power of the executive but they assumed people would follow those rules. They never really considered the possibility of a private citizens gaining so much power that they can ignore government.

  • SSJMarx@lemm.ee
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    5 hours ago

    George Washington was the tyrant George Washington feared. Just ask the Revolutionary War veterans who had the audacity to demand payment for their service, the poor rural farmers whose only reliable store of value was excessively taxed, the American Indians he helped massacre or oh yeah his fucking slaves.

  • psycho_driver@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    I’m pretty sure he feared a Tyrant smarter than Trump, but if we fail with Trump as the litmus test . . . well. Better luck next democracy I guess?

  • Asafum@feddit.nl
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    14 hours ago

    And our electorate is in part why the electoral college exists and why the founders thought we shouldn’t have a direct vote: we’re too fucking stupid and too easily swayed by a populist. Too bad the actual electors won’t do what they’re allowed to do and not vote for Trump even if the people do.

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      At the time the electoral college was instituted, only white land owning men could vote, the majority of the population was illiterate, and only the very rich could afford to be well-versed in the affairs of state.

      To compare that horse and buggy time with today’s world with near-complete literacy, mass media and widespread internet access is even more moronic than you are pretending that the electorate is.

      The problem isn’t that Americans are significantly dumber than the people of other nations.

      It’s that the US is one of the most propagandized nations in the world due to billionaires, hectomillionaires, their corporations, and their industry associations owning the mainstream media and the vast majority of the politicians as well as the political machines pulling the strings behind the scenes.

      Revered as minor deities as they are, the Founding Fathers couldn’t have predicted the conditions 250 years into the future. Including the fact that the very mechanism they included to make sure that the constitution would be updated to fit the times, the amendment process, would become functionally impossible.

      Tl;Dr: the problem isn’t people being too stupid, the problem is that the will of the people has been overruled by organized corruption and propaganda.

      • Asafum@feddit.nl
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        6 hours ago

        While I absolutely understand propaganda is the issue (my comment history is chock full of “I fucking hate propagandists”) we’re all subject to the same information that others can’t seem to see through. That someone like MTG can stay in government isn’t completely the fault of propaganda, you have to be stupid enough to not see how absolutely stupid and hateful people like her are and choose to vote for them again and again.

      • qprimed@lemmy.ml
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        6 hours ago

        isnt what we are currently experiencing an unhealthy reaction to the that same propagandized society? hard to pump shit into peoples heads for decades and not get some sort of sociopathic, immune-like response. many of our fellow citizens really do want to see it all burn right now. everything has been calcified and these people are lashing out in, what I think is, the worst possible way.

        in many respects the very thinking processes of our society have been perverted in service to the whims of the richest. I consider this a bit of a dumbing down of our civic intelligence, but… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  • MyOpinion@lemm.ee
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    14 hours ago

    This is the moment we can lose our republic. Nuts that it could be to MAGA morons.

    • basmati@lemmus.org
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      12 hours ago

      And nothing of value would be lost. In it’s ashes we could get an actual democracy built for the people, by the people.

      • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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        4 hours ago

        If fascists win, what / who do you think those ashes will be made of?

      • Blackbeard@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        You seriously think it will lead to a rebuilt democracy, rather than a bloodthirsty fascist hellscape, followed by a multi-polar civil war and then periodic cycles of warlord rule, culminating with invasions by foreign adversaries? That’s cute.

        We’re about to get fucked like the countries we spent centuries fucking to get here.

        • Jeanschyso@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          At least you can count on Canada to send help to the more dire areas to stop the worst of the civilian impact. You’re not alone in the world.

          • qprimed@lemmy.ml
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            6 hours ago

            love you, friend… but I am not sure thats gonna hold when we start pointing loose nukes at everyone. the fall will not be easy.

      • mipadaitu@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        Or something worse. Don’t assume that what you prefer would be built up as a replacement.

        • MegaUltraChicken@lemmy.world
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          8 hours ago

          It also completely ignores the millions of people that are going to be victimized, even if we rebuild a perfect society from the ashes (highly unlikely). I will never understand accelerationsts. They completely ignore some of the most basic values that progressives should have.