U.S. democracy: Canceled by popular demand?

Politics & Elections
21

…because, by and large, most people think they are gonna be fine.

Keep your head down, do your job. Play your part. Don’t be Black, or brown, or trans, or openly gay. Support the cops. Support the troops. Don’t you dare criticise our allies.

Its already here. Everybody are already too comfortable with it to put a stop to it now. Who here are out there protesting cop cities? Making a stand against “liberal” colleges singling out specific protests for the police to smash and punish individual students? The Democrat’s cruel immigration policy? Abortion is banned in many states and It’s met with a collective shrug. More people, disproportionately Black and indigenous, are incarcerated in America than almost anywhere else in the world and its been that way for decades, does anyone really care?

The answer is of course, yes, people do care. And the people that are leading the charge are the “leftists” and the “progressives”.

The George Floyd protests are illustrative here. It got smashed by the cops. Centrists complained about the messaging. “Defund the cops” is too confusing. And divisive. Democrats around the country decided to give the police more money. And police are now killing more people than ever.

The progressive wing is often shut down by the centrists who are more concerned with “image” and “being on message”, too worried about donors turning off the tap than they are about the death of democracy.

And now Democrat states are talking about banning masks at large gatherings. And turning a blind eye while the police nationwide shut down dissent.

And this isn’t an American thing. Variations of the same thing are happening all around the world. In my own country, the government is speed-running austerity. Its utterly miserable here.

Too many of us are simply complicit. It hasn’t affected us. And probably won’t affect us. So we are gonna be just fine.

Add to that the “two party system.” Where people have no choice but to go with one or the other. People see it as “good vs evil” when its really “bad vs even worse.” The Democrats are simply awful. The only party capable of stopping a rapid decline into authoritarianism is happy for it to decline slowly.

22

So which is it?

Are you saying we should be forming armed resistance units to defeat the Trump regime? Because I’m going to say that’s a little premature. How about we just hold an election and vote against him and see how that works out first?

Or are you saying that we should be forming armed resistance units to overthrow the American government as a whole? Because it doesn’t matter who gets elected. The people can’t be trusted to choose their own leaders. They need us to run the country and show them the true way. If so, then include me out. Trying to overthrow the government is one of the reasons I’m opposed to Trump.

23

It’s that simple folks … just needs a billion in ad buys, some discipline amongst the political elites and 70 million Americans prepared to queue for a couple of hours.

24

I recently watched the following program on PBS: Nazi Town, USA which described the rise of fascism in America at the same time as the Nazis in Germany. It was an eye opening experience and one that has a hauntingly similar essence to our current situation in the USA.

25

While I don’t disagree with much here, I do think the regular comparisons to the Nazis are potentially misleading and unhelpful. The Nazis were NOT particularly typical of fascist regimes. Most fascist regimes DON’T start continent wide wars. Most fascist regimes DON’T commit genocide (and if they do, not with such vigour). So comparisons of modern far-right movements with the Nazis are easy to dismiss as hysterical over-reactions.

Instead, try comparing Trump and the Republicans to Mussolini and the Fascisti, or to Franco or Salazar and the Falange, or to the Colonels in Greece. Then, … yes, Americans should be worried. This is not our (grand)parents’ Reaganism or Thatcherism.

26

I’ve said this before:

A lot of this is a great rage felt among a large part of the working class population. That rage has been building, and suddenly for the first time, someone with a tremendous presence and now power is acting as their voice.

And that rage is NOT entirely unfounded. The rust belt cities have been decimated. In 1955 you could drop out of High School and get a union job at the factory and make enough to buy a house and raise a family. There are no more good jobs for a strong back and a weak mind.

Wealth inequality is just insane. And everyone likes to talk about the 1%, but really it’s the 10%. How many of you reading this have seen their wealth explode over the last 10 years, thanks to buybacks, loose monetary policy, etc? How many of those strong back workers even hold any equities?

The world has changed, and if you’re in one group you’ve done exceptionally well. Thank you, China, for the $300 flat panel TV (ever notice that the 19 inch Hitachi color TV we got in the 80s was ALSO $300?). Work from home? Don’t mind if I do! That house I bought in the suburbs of Boston years ago? Mmm Mmm Equity. If you’re in this group, globalization has not only made your job prospects easier, it’s made you vastly richer if for no other reason than how cheap most things are.

If you’re in the other group* you no longer have a union job making televisions, and now you’re working at the warehouse. You tried working from home, but that just got you fired. Your kids will never be able to buy a house unless they can get a degree (that you can’t pay for) and probably move away. And never mind about little Ben. He’s a sweet kid, but he’ll be lucky to get through High School. Don’t know what he’s going to do. And when I turn on that $300 flat panel TV all I see are rich coastal elites who think I’m an asshole.

I’m by no means defending it. I think you all know I’m not voting Republican. But what I wrote is very real, and it explains a great deal of the anger. This isn’t working for them, and after 40 years they’ll try anything. And you might too.

*I’m not saying there are ONLY two groups, but these two are hugely impactful in the current situation.

27

All I can say to that is … great minds:

And – much the same as it’s ridiculously easy to enter into a war, and unimaginably difficult to get out of one – it’s easier to give people stuff than it is to take stuff from them.

Meaning: pulling back from this one – which could ameliorate misery and reduce the wealth gap – almost surely cannot be done without a rather enormous amount of pain.

And – much like getting the money out of politics – those who benefit so richly from the system basically also control it.

28

So they voted for the New York City real estate billionaire that cut taxes on the rich and raised taxes on them.

You actually have a very valid point, and this is why democrats would clean up if they pushed an economically left agenda - but they don’t because they work for the same billionaires that the republicans do. They’re allowed to fight on shit that doesn’t matter to billionaires like gay rights or guns, but no one is allowed to give any economic prosperity to the vast majority of Americans.

But the bitter working class voting directly for the kleptocrats that hate them is as dumb as it gets.

29

The difference is that both Democrats and Republicans have promised to do things like bringing back good manufacturing jobs (they can’t) or “let’s retrain all the coal miners and UAW workers to be coders and call center workers”

And if you grew up in a blue collar family you’d know that second one is utterly absurd. While some blue collar workers might like that, and many would be capable of it, you simply don’t take a 40 year old who’s worked with his hands since he was 16 and make him a programmer. I’m sure someone will point to an example of this, but it isn’t typical.

And that’s ignoring the reality that there’s a significant number of people who work pouring molten metal into a casting because, frankly, the “strong back and weak mind” job is the best they can do. And that ain’t modern manufacturing.

Trump, on the other hand, gets up there and literally channels their anger. He tells them they’ve been screwed and points directly at the screwers. That’s what they find so attractive. You know he’s not going to help them, and I know that, but to be fair, none of the establishment politicians are either.

30

Agreed that populism has the potential to attract disillusioned working-class voters. But it’s not so intuitive that structural economic problems led directly to an anti-liberal cult of Trump. The Great Depression was far worse and led instead to FDR’s social-welfare state.

31

In his thread on Argentina politics, Frodo makes reference to what they call “el voto bronca”. “Rage vote”.

And as mentioned earlier, it does not explain everything but it does explain what was the exploit that gathered a large number of followers. Not everyone, but a lot.

32

The truth is that all the American preening about the wonders of representative democracy carries a small asterisk, which is that it was a democracy of, by, and for white men, for the purpose of plundering the continent. That’s exactly what the founders intended.

Anytime there’s ever been a challenge to this order, the country has threatened to rip itself apart. That’s what’s happening now, again.

The white elite learned their lesson from the Civil War. You don’t go to war against the US government. You colonize the anti-democratic parts of it (SCOTUS and Senate), take control of the US government, implement authoritarianism, and create conditions necessary to expel states that don’t agree. This is the substrate of Project 2025, the deeper project that underlies it.

33

Most people just aren’t that engaged with this and won’t worry about the end of democracy when they vote.

For years, many voters happily voted for politicians that said they would overturn Roe and make abortion illegal, without thinking it would really happen or affect them. Once it happened, you had pretty much every popular referendum to make abortion legal again pass, even in Kansas. The actual overturning of Roe opened people’s eyes.

Unfortunately, if an authoritarian actually takes control in the US, it’s probably too late.

34

The problem with a dictator who agrees with me is that he may change his mind, or be replaced with someone who disagrees and who thinks I should be punished.

I love political arguments. I do not want those who disagree with me to be silenced. I want to be allowed to disagree with them.

35

During Trump’s first term in office I became convinced a sizable portion of his supporters wanted to see him burn everything to the ground. January 6, 2021 solidified my beliefs. Trump’s been campaigning in 2024 as an avenging angel who will be scourge upon his enemies. MAGA eats that stuff up. Rage vote sounds about right. And as @OldOlds says, a lot of them have good reason to be angry.

I believe folks like Speaker Johnson, Mitch McConnell, Lauren Boebert, and other politicians who support Trump are completely fine with an autocrat just so long as they think they’ll share in that power. I’m not so sure what the average MAGA follower thinks because I’m never sure what they actually believe. They have such a warped perpsective that is so divorced from reality as to be fantasy. I wonder to myself if they actually believe the MAGA lies or they just tell me they believe the MAGA lies because they know I don’t like it. Surly none of them actually believe everybody, pro-life and pro-choice, wanted Roe v. Wade overturned and the issue sent to indivudals states. Right? Nobody believes that.

36

As others pointed out, one huge draw is that many people who imagine a dictatorship imagine it to be one that favors their side. That has immense appeal if you really, really hate the other side and think the other side is out to destroy America. There are even some people on the left who want this, too, although nowhere close to the number of people on the right who do. Even as early as 2017, I recall seeing a cartoon depicting Trumpers getting guillotined.

The second issue is Maslow’s Hierarchy: “Democracy” is a high-minded sounding ideal and doesn’t really resonate with people on a gut level when they’re struggling to pay for groceries, buried in bills and life is brutal. Right now, a lot of Democrats keep talking about the importance of saving democracy, but for many Americans, democracy is a low priority when they wonder if they’re about to be evicted or are still $60,000 in debt. There’s a reason Hitler and the Nazis came to power in the context of runaway inflation and a broken Germany.

37

“Popular demand” isn’t really the right phrase. Many presidents and other leaders did not have a majority of votes. Most people feel the law should fully apply to executives, who are not above it.

38

Beating Trump by only a razor-thin margin in three swing states in 2020, and now Roe being overturned, the Supreme Court being 6-3 conservative, affirmative action overturned, and Biden currently in serious danger of losing to Trump this November, does not sound like “successfully defeating Trump.” A temporary reprieve to catch one’s breath, perhaps.

39

To reply to the OP: Another point is that many people who call for a tyranny are convinced that the other side is already enacting a tyranny. There’s a reason many Trumpers call Biden a dictator and feed off of that energy.

If there’s going to be a dictatorship no matter what, then at least you’d be better off if it is YOUR dictatorship, not the opposing side’s, right? It’s a matter of survival at that point.

And then it becomes a rapid spiral to the bottom. The more Side A is convinced Side B wants tyranny, they’ll become more pro-tyranny themselves. And then it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy where both sides now want tyranny in order to stave off the other side’s tyranny. All jokes about SEAL Team 6 aside, you could see a situation where liberals think that only the use of heavy-handed measures by Biden or some Democrat will suffice to stave off the threat of Trumpism.

40

This thread is depressing the hell out of me.

I and dozens of other posters have complained ad nauseum about the 30-40% of Americans who exist in the bizarre alternate reality in which Trump is a hero and Democrats are evil incarnate. We blame Gingrich, Limbaugh, Murdoch and of course Trump himself for spawning this alternate universe.

But it couldn’t have happened if people weren’t ready to believe in it. And they’ve been ready to believe in it because life in the United States sucks if you’re not well-off, well-educated and well-insulated from the downsides of globalization.

As someone who largely has benefited from the policies and practices of the last 40-ish years, I’m ashamed that we who’ve had it so good for so long let it get so bad for so many.

And now it might be too late to fix it.