[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by Rutuu

Points 1 & 2: Orban and Putin in my opinion were able to take advantage of hard economic times, weak institutions, and a general distrust of democracy within their post soviet populations. Hitler also took advantage of hard economic times and a population that was still unfamiliar with democracy.

Trump has relentlessly lied and demagogued to undermine institutions and spread distrust in elections. He's been doing it ever since 2015. He's also wildly overstated the economic challenges the country has been facing, and spreading lies about the country "declining" and "going to hell". It's obvious what he goal has been, to create the conditions necessary to do to America what Putin and Orban did to their countries.

The current US may be disillusioned with some aspects of THEIR democracy, but it is entrenched within generations of their population.

Maybe so, but once Trump is in power, is there anything they can do to protect democracy? You might say protest, but the combination of a lack of media other than Trump sychophants, and protests being violently snuffed out, will mean that the American people will be powerless to stop Trump from doing whatever he wants.

Murder is far more serious than any crime he is currently indicted with, and a far easier message to get across to an electorate that is bombarded daily with blockbuster headlines.

He can get around that problem by doing what Putin does. In most cases he prosecutes his political opponents to oblivion with bogus charges. When he wants to take someone out, he orders a secret assassination (thrown out window or poisoning) and denies any involvement in the death. Look at Navalny for example.

Point 4: This is his rhetoric.

It's strikingly similar to Nazi rhetoric, and it's a big problem. By framing his political opposition as extreme radicals hell bent on destroying the country, he's conditioned his supporters into thinking that their political opponents should be repressed or outright exterminated.

Point 5: The Chevron flip-flop, is actually less insidious, now Congress, who are elected to write laws, are responsible for writing the explicit laws for regulators to follow. The former system, gave the regulator unchecked power. I like my elected representatives controlling these types of things, but I can understand not everyone feels that way.

This might make sense in a theoretical level, but in the real world it creates massive problems. There are too many nuanced situations that come up, such that the congress can't possibly understand all the intricacies of each situation and write specific legislation for each one. It's just not practical. Even if it somehow was practical, you're swapping the on-the-ground, in-depth expertise of people who actually understand what the regulations should be, for the surface-level knowledge of Washington-DC politicians.

Then you have the problem of gridlock in congress. Unless democrats have control of all 3 chambers, no regulations get passed. Republicans only want to block regulations and remove the ones that already exist. The result is corporations having free reign to pollute the environment and harm the consumer all they want, and a handcuffed government unable to do anything about it.

Finally, there are more democrat appointed judges in the federal system.


364 of the 678 positions in the districts, and a little less than half of the appeals judges (85 out of 178).

The Supreme Court is in Trump's pocket. The lower courts can't do anything to overrule them.

You are entitled to feel the way you do about this election, but so do other people. Accusing us of not paying attention is a bit harsh I feel.

I take that comment back. But please try to understand my frustration. Up until the last few days, it didn't seem like anyone here was looking at this election with much seriousness or deep concern. Maybe I was wrong about that. But I keep seeing a whole lot of "hey don't worry, everything will be fine. What happened in other countries can't happen in America. The country survived one Trump presidency, it can survive another."

When I see these kinds of talking points, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. They sound a lot like "don't worry, smoking doesn't cause cancer" or "don't worry, climate change is a hoax".