• Count Regal Inkwell@pawb.social
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    5 months ago

    Yes and no.

    Without Trump fucking shit up on a government level (the Supreme Court in particular), there would probably be less scary shit happening on that end. Would have slowed things down.

    But the radicalisation of the Americans began before 2016. Trump is a symptom, not a cause. The disease started spreading as early as 2008. The recession, the damp squib that was the Occupy Wall Street event was the inception of many political movements, both far left AND far right.

    That’s the thing people don’t realise. Even if Donald J. Trump didn’t exist, the underlying social tensions mean that inevitably someone would show up to galvanise far right sentiments, and the political estabilishment would have boosted them, whoever they were, because when the common folk are getting angry about their lot, then to the people actually in charge, a fascist dictatorship is preferrable to the alternative.

    • CoggyMcFee@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I think that electing someone as deranged as Trump — who basically would try anything and everything that a sane person wouldn’t risk out of self-preservation, we basically saw a speedrun of finding out all the weaknesses and exploits of our government, combined with proving that impeachment and removal is basically impossible as long as one party is in collusion with the president.

      We might have gotten here anyway, but it might have been a decade or two rather than four short years.

      And the Supreme Court wouldn’t look like it does and be doing what’s it’s doing, which is also now a speedrun of horror.

      I’ll never forgive Americans for 2016.

      • Myro@lemm.ee
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        5 months ago

        Yeah. Pushing for nearly immunity of the president might turn out to be very costly when someone actually reckless comes to presidency. And I presume Trump will be a version of that someone, as he is getting old and there won’t be another term for him. Nothing to lose, all to gain. He will make th US a shit show.