Jon Stewart mocked both President Biden and former President Trump during his return to “The Daily Show,” saying both 2024 candidates are “stretching the limits of being able to h…
If the people in charge have the ability to end democracy, how can democracy be claimed to exist in the first place? Democracy is supposed to be our capability as individual citizens to regulate the people in power, but if they can turn that switch on or off, we don’t actually have that capability except as they choose to allow us to.
It’s never a binary on/off switch. Democracy dies through slow corrosion. If we let Trump off with all of those crimes he committed, and allow him to get re-elected, all of those crimes are now unenforceable.
Well, unenforceable for the rich and powerful. The poor has a different system of justice.
Republicans literally have been splitting in half ever since Trump lost in 2020. They ousted their own Speaker, and are now trying to oust McConnell via public opinion. They had 2 primary candidates (DeSantis and Haley) who actually got national attention, and a decent-ish number of votes. What part of that is “in line”?
DeSantis, Haley, and all of the Speaker nonsense has been infighting with old-guard rich assholes who want to break government more subtlety than how Trump and the rest of the Tea Party idiots do things. The GOP has been trying to steer out of this Trump trainwreck ever since it’s started, and they don’t have the control over their own populace than they used to. But, that’s not a good thing because everything that the GOP represents has been going even further extremist.
But, do you know what happens when these candidates drop out? They immediately fall in line. They kiss Trump’s ass so hard that no callous insult he made at him is unforgivable. Hell, Trump accused Ted Cruz’s father of helping in the JFK assassination, and Ted was like, “Yeah, we should totally vote for this guy!”
It’s never a binary on/off switch. Democracy dies through slow corrosion.
There are a lot of ways to define what qualifies as Democracy: is it the mere presence of voting? Is it the impact of that voting? Is it equal/ universal voting rights? Is it the ability to enforce voting outcomes? Or the ability for voters to choose what is voted on?
Some of those are clear binaries, and some of those are gradations or thresholds.
Personally, I think it has to be a combination of universal voting rights, voter-led ballot control(i.e. choosing what to vote about), and enforceability.
To me, we’ve been failing as a democracy for a long time.
If we let Trump off with all of those crimes he committed, and allow him to get re-elected, all of those crimes are now unenforceable.
The unenforceability of those laws is not determined by his reelection, they’re determined by the actual court cases charging him with crimes. We do not have the ability to force SCOTUS to allow him to be held accountable, and comforting ourselves that we actually can, merely by not re-electing him, means you already realize the laws are not going to be enforced against him in the “Justice” System.
But, do you know what happens when these candidates drop out? They immediately fall in line.
Which is exactly what every Democrat challenger does as well.
No, if someone is claiming that democracy is being killed, it’s very important to define what that actually means. If Democracy is the simple act of some any given sub-group being allowed to vote, it’s never going to ‘die’ in the US. If on the other hand it’s the actual ability for individuals to overrule those in power via voting, then it’s arguably already dead. Definitions are important.
When I say “Trump is eroding our democracy,” most people - including you - understand what I’m driving at.
I agree with Stewart on that point:
Come Election Day, Stewart said, “If your guy loses, bad things might happen, but the country is not over. And if your guy wins, the country is in no way saved.”
Trump is not going to end voting if he gets reelected, and voter suppression and disenfranchisement by Republicans existed long before Trump and will continue long after Trump. There is nothing that Trump is going to fundamentally change about our government.
It will be very bad if he gets elected, but the country is not over, and using hyperbolic language that implies otherwise, like “This is a question of whether democracy dies in America.” (which is what the commenter I initially responded to said), is just being used to deflect from very important and valid criticism of the alternatives. More importantly, it runs the danger of creating voter fatigue; not every election can be an exceptional, emergency situation, and all of Trump’s runner-ups like DeSantis and Ramaswamy, are all running the same playbook.
If the only way for America and/or Democracy not to die is for Republicans to never again become president, it’s already lost, because we’re in a duopoly with them (which the DNC is actively working to maintain), and it is an eventuality.
You inserted yourself into a conversation I was having, in which the other person (P03 Locke) was disputing Stewart’s assertion that the country would not be over, and asserting that
This is a question of whether democracy dies in America.
That is the context in which I felt it was necessary to define Democracy.
You then jumped in and said
When I say “Trump is eroding our democracy,”
despite the fact you had not actually said that previously, and that it is a different stance from what P03 Locke said.
P03 Locke never asserted Trump was eroding Democracy, they said he would be killing it, and they said that as a direct counter to Stewart’s assertion that the country would not be over, which indicates that in P03 Locke’s mind, the death of Democracy is equivalent to the end of America.
In that case, it’s incredibly important to define Democracy, in order to understand exactly what changes P03 Locke believes Trump will make, so we can actually assess the likely impact of those changes, and see what precisely they think qualifies as the end of Democracy.
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It’s never a binary on/off switch. Democracy dies through slow corrosion. If we let Trump off with all of those crimes he committed, and allow him to get re-elected, all of those crimes are now unenforceable.
Well, unenforceable for the rich and powerful. The poor has a different system of justice.
DeSantis, Haley, and all of the Speaker nonsense has been infighting with old-guard rich assholes who want to break government more subtlety than how Trump and the rest of the Tea Party idiots do things. The GOP has been trying to steer out of this Trump trainwreck ever since it’s started, and they don’t have the control over their own populace than they used to. But, that’s not a good thing because everything that the GOP represents has been going even further extremist.
But, do you know what happens when these candidates drop out? They immediately fall in line. They kiss Trump’s ass so hard that no callous insult he made at him is unforgivable. Hell, Trump accused Ted Cruz’s father of helping in the JFK assassination, and Ted was like, “Yeah, we should totally vote for this guy!”
There are a lot of ways to define what qualifies as Democracy: is it the mere presence of voting? Is it the impact of that voting? Is it equal/ universal voting rights? Is it the ability to enforce voting outcomes? Or the ability for voters to choose what is voted on?
Some of those are clear binaries, and some of those are gradations or thresholds.
Personally, I think it has to be a combination of universal voting rights, voter-led ballot control(i.e. choosing what to vote about), and enforceability.
To me, we’ve been failing as a democracy for a long time.
The unenforceability of those laws is not determined by his reelection, they’re determined by the actual court cases charging him with crimes. We do not have the ability to force SCOTUS to allow him to be held accountable, and comforting ourselves that we actually can, merely by not re-electing him, means you already realize the laws are not going to be enforced against him in the “Justice” System.
Which is exactly what every Democrat challenger does as well.
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No, if someone is claiming that democracy is being killed, it’s very important to define what that actually means. If Democracy is the simple act of some any given sub-group being allowed to vote, it’s never going to ‘die’ in the US. If on the other hand it’s the actual ability for individuals to overrule those in power via voting, then it’s arguably already dead. Definitions are important.
deleted by creator
I agree with Stewart on that point:
Trump is not going to end voting if he gets reelected, and voter suppression and disenfranchisement by Republicans existed long before Trump and will continue long after Trump. There is nothing that Trump is going to fundamentally change about our government.
It will be very bad if he gets elected, but the country is not over, and using hyperbolic language that implies otherwise, like “This is a question of whether democracy dies in America.” (which is what the commenter I initially responded to said), is just being used to deflect from very important and valid criticism of the alternatives. More importantly, it runs the danger of creating voter fatigue; not every election can be an exceptional, emergency situation, and all of Trump’s runner-ups like DeSantis and Ramaswamy, are all running the same playbook.
If the only way for America and/or Democracy not to die is for Republicans to never again become president, it’s already lost, because we’re in a duopoly with them (which the DNC is actively working to maintain), and it is an eventuality.
deleted by creator
You inserted yourself into a conversation I was having, in which the other person (P03 Locke) was disputing Stewart’s assertion that the country would not be over, and asserting that
That is the context in which I felt it was necessary to define Democracy.
You then jumped in and said
despite the fact you had not actually said that previously, and that it is a different stance from what P03 Locke said.
P03 Locke never asserted Trump was eroding Democracy, they said he would be killing it, and they said that as a direct counter to Stewart’s assertion that the country would not be over, which indicates that in P03 Locke’s mind, the death of Democracy is equivalent to the end of America.
In that case, it’s incredibly important to define Democracy, in order to understand exactly what changes P03 Locke believes Trump will make, so we can actually assess the likely impact of those changes, and see what precisely they think qualifies as the end of Democracy.
deleted by creator