this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2025
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No Stupid Questions

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You'd think a hegemony with a 100-years tradition of upkeeping democracy against major non-democratic players, would have some mechanism that would prevent itself from throwing down it's key ideology.

Is it really that the president is all that decides about the future of democracy itself? Is 53 out of 100 senate seats really enough to make country fall into authoritarian regime? Is the army really not constitutionally obliged to step in and save the day?

I'd never think that, of all places, American democracy would be the most volatile.

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[–] ddplf@szmer.info 70 points 1 day ago (5 children)

So you actually need majority to PREVENT the collapse of democracy, and if you don't have it, you're fucked? How the fuck did this country even manage not to succumb into dictatorship for such a long time?

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 107 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Worse... The House makes the impeachment charge, that's a 50% majority vote.

THEN it goes to the Senate for conviction where you need a 2/3rds majority to remove them. 67/100.

That's the body which can't do anything because they're blocked by a 60 vote super majority to over-ride a filibuster.

So you get 218 in the House, goes to the Senate, needs 60 votes to end debate and proceed with charges, then 67 votes to convict and remove.

Trump's first impeachment got 48 and 47 votes.
His second was 57 votes.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_impeachment_trial_of_Donald_Trump

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_impeachment_of_Donald_Trump

If he had been convicted, he would have been inelligible to run in '24.

[–] Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world 24 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

The founders probably imagined no self respecting person, oligarch or otherwise, would want to live under authoritarian rule.

Turns out the 21st century bourgeois is full of pussy ass bitches.

[–] rhombus@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

They never could have imagined our modern society at all. The amount of power and influence held by just a handful of private citizens couldn’t have been accounted for in the 18th century.

[–] Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

I'm just speaking from a matter of principles. They don't have to know the conditions to conclude living under king rule in any condition is unappealing.

[–] in4apenny@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 hours ago

I mean they waged a bloody revolution against Kings, and inequality has increased a thousand-fold since, so wtf are we doing?

[–] alleycat@lemmy.world 58 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

If enough people in a democracy decide that they want a dictatorship instead, then there is no stopping it, because rules don't matter at this point. The trick is to not let it get this far. Tough shit for the US, though.

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 33 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I mean imagine if you could impeach the president without a majority. That would be the death of democracy. Just to put things in perspective: The GOP democratically won both houses of Congress and the presidency and because of DNC incompetence also has the Supreme Court. Them being able to do whatever the fuck they want is, in a way, democracy working as intended. It'd be weirder (and much more undemocratic) if there was a way to remove a sitting president without the Supreme Court or Congress.

[–] ddplf@szmer.info 18 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This only proves that two-party system is just an authoritarianism with rotation. There's always a ruling majority and the winner takes all.

Things would be different with at least the third party. 2 out of 3 parties would agree that the party no.3 is a fucking malice and rule him out.

[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Two party system wasn't in the constitution, its an emergent property of FPTP voting method. FPTP + Electoral College means we get this fucking bullshit.

TLDR: There's no "two-party system", that's just the result of FPTP. Nuke the FPTP system, replace with Ranked-Choice ballot (and also delete the Electoral College, that shit is outdated AF).

[–] ShellMonkey@lemmy.socdojo.com 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Very much on the electoral college, it made some measure of sense when the electors would have to ride a horse from California to DC maybe but that died a century or so ago.

From a smart ass perspective though, I just want to point that the TLDR portion actually has more words than the block above it. 🙃

[–] deo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 8 hours ago

If they hadn't capped the number of representatives at 435 over a hundred years ago, we wouldn't be in the situation where a vote from Wyoming carries 3.7 times more weight than a vote from California. By my math, if the 435 cap was abolished, we would have 143 more electors generally sprinkled among the more populous states. I still agree that the EC is outdated, but it's not even operating the way it was designed.

From a smart ass perspective though, I just want to point that the TLDR portion actually has more words than the block above it. 🙃

Lol I started to use "TLDR" as a replacement for "In Conclusion", because the concluding paragraph is supposed to summarize what you wrote anyways, so those terms are interchangeable.

[–] evidences@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago

Third party would most likely make things better but there's no guarantee it would help in the situation you've set up. If two of the parties are fine with an actual Nazi in the White House and between them they control over half the votes then we're still in the same situation.

[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

It’d be weirder (and much more undemocratic) if there was a way to remove a sitting president without the Supreme Court or Congress.

Turns out there is, in fact. It just doesn't involve governmental process at all. You're quite correct that it's undemocratic. (See: Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy)

[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If people democratically voted to end democracy, what are we suppose to do?

[–] Forbo@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

People democratically sat on their asses and didn't bother to fucking vote. More people abstained from voting than actually voted for either candidate. The real winner of the election was apathy. We deserve whatever fucked up outcome we get.

[–] tamal3@lemmy.world 2 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

The rest of the world doesn't deserve it...

[–] Bz1sen@lemmy.world 1 points 17 hours ago

Well some part of the world wanted this and did a lot to achieve this. But yeah, most don't deserve what's probably to come