Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said the reelection of former President Trump would be the “end of democracy” in an interview released Saturday by The Guardian.
“It will be the end of democracy, functional democracy,” Sanders said in the interview.
The Vermont senator also said in the interview that he thinks that another round of Trump as the president will be a lot more extreme than the first.
“He’s made that clear,” Sanders said. “There’s a lot of personal bitterness, he’s a bitter man, having gone through four indictments, humiliated, he’s going to take it out on his enemies. We’ve got to explain to the American people what that means to them — what the collapse of American democracy will mean to all of us.”
Sanders’s words echo those President Biden made in a recent campaign speech during which he said that Trump’s return to the presidency would risk American democracy. The president highlighted the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol in an attempt to cement a point about Trump and other Republicans espousing a kind of extremism that was seen by the world on that day.
Welp.
If he is even allowed to run it means The Constitution is just optional.
- for Republicans.
Removed by mod
To be clear, that’s all the Republican party is about now.
That already happened in 2010 with Citizens United, and the late Justice John Paul Stevens’ dissent nailed it:
“A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold.”
That’s one part of it. This is a good read: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/america-is-not-a-democracy/550931/
“The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
The worst part about all of this is, imo, we’ve known what the problems are for so long now, but nothing is getting fixed and the rot is apparent. I grew up in America, but seeing what it is becoming from the outside is heartbreaking.
I would’ve added,
“If money didn’t influence elections, why are people spending so much on them?”
Yeah repeal CU
Factionalization and internal party consensus would be a precursor as well.
Voters should have never been put in this position. If we have to depend on Joe Biden and Dems to clutch out the win and save Democracy then you might as well start bracing for the worst. “Not being Trump” is low bar a dangerous way to try to win.
He has done a pretty solid job, and has passed some good legislation. If it weren’t for this whole funding Israel’s horrific war crime thing, I’d have no qualms giving him more time to clean shit up.
deleted by creator
I think they’re talking about the election campaign, not necessarily the administration. Is Joe even running?
Not voting for the bigger evil has been the way it has been for much longer than you think. And it is on the voters. believe it or not it is actually the voters fault (the non voters fault) that it is this way. As It was also on the voters to do candidate nomination. So you can’t excuse your first neglect and then complain it’s ‘too much’ now when it is all the way at the the election phase and you just now woke up to complain you hate who was nominated for the election. So yeah it is on the voters. This part always is. It’s like a manager hiring a shit person because they didn’t bother to do a background check and then complaining ‘it’s too much responsibility’ when the shit hiree starts toxifying the work place. It’s not just a bad employee to make that situation. It’s bad manager. So voting public are just as much to blame for making this a shit show.
And it is on the voters.
No, it’s on the party, and the candidate they select to run.
It’s that simple. DNC should be having debates and put forward the best candidate. DNC is completely corrupt and bought by the most fundraising.
attorneys representing the DNC claim that the Democratic National Committee would be well within their rights to “go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way." https://observer.com/2017/08/court-admits-dnc-and-debbie-wasserman-schulz-rigged-primaries-against-sanders/
A. Parties haven’t held effective primaries for an incumbent since I was born.
B. Political parties are private organizations. They are completely within their rights to go back into the smoke filled back rooms.
C. That would be political suicide and tells us exactly what the DNC thinks about us.
Right? I’m tired of being fucking surrounded by misinformation, even on lemmy.
Political parties don’t give up the incumbent advantage. This isn’t new.
A. Primaries have existed since 1972. 1976 Ford primaried by Reagan. 1980 incumbent Carter challenged by Ted Kennedy. 1992 Ross Perot.
If B is true, they shouldn’t be able to use tax dollars and public employees for their primary elections. They should have to fund and administer their private org election themselves. In fact, in many states only the two parties even have access to primary ballots.
C. DNC could care less about winning. See also Bernie.
1992 Ross Perot.
Ross Perot was a third party candidate, not a primary challenger to an incumbent. I take no issue with anything else in your comment.
Sorry. Buchanan primaried Bush Sr. (Incumbent)
Ross Perot was an independent. That’s hardly a party primary. The others were before I was born. Also primaries have been a thing since the early 1900’s. They just didn’t have as much weight then as they do now.
I’m going to need an example state where minor parties can’t get on the ballot. At any rate afaik, they pay the state for the election. But it’s also in the state’s best interest to run it.
And they did win with Biden. I think it’s more fair to say they care more about their internal politics than winning.
Ohio is one example that took away third party ballot access. The first hurdle would be getting 60,000 valid voter signatures in a limited time frame. Then you would need to get 120,000 General election votes for a Gov candidate. Arkansas etc are similar
https://ballotpedia.org/Ballot_access_requirements_for_political_parties_in_Ohio
Other examples can be found https://ballotpedia.org/Ballot_access_requirements_for_political_parties_in_the_United_States
Presidential primaries did not exist until the 20th century, and they did not have a major impact on conventions until many years later. In 1960, John F. Kennedy won several Democratic primaries, but Lyndon Baines Johnson remained the favorite of the party establishment.
At any rate it was the Convention that selected candidate until…
After the controversial 1968 presidential cycle, the Democrats began to reform their nomination process to make it more inclusive and transparent, and to make its results more representative of the will of the party as a whole, not just the party bosses and insiders.
deleted by creator
It’s that simple. DNC should be having debates and put forward the best candidate.
Exactly. The Democratic establishment is trying to play things as if its just another regular election (by not maximizing their chances of winning with another candidate), and not a critical one, with the country in the balance, in hopes of gaining/maintaining power.
The fact that they are trying to guilt-shame everybody into voting for Biden is truly unethical/immoral/wrong. People died for our freedom to vote, its not something that should be manipulated so that a vote is forced a certain way.
*unethical/immoral
TY; corrected.
It isn’t voter’s fault, once again the theme for Dems is “Hey I’m not that worse guy.” to be the selling point to save democracy. People saying democracy is at stake isn’t going to motivate everyone when it doesn’t even work properly in the country they live in. The only class of people who have access to democracy is the wealthy ruling class. When they collectively want something, they get it.
I think I agree but I wouldn’t have put it quite so dramatically.
I despise Trump, his popularity is infuriating. That said I don’t necessarily think he’s any more corrupt than politicians generally, he he just doesn’t have any finesse. Like someone else might make fucking everyone over look better, if that makes sense.
Even before Trump I often thought that democracy isn’t really about elected representatives executing the will of the people, it’s more about elected representatives convincing the people that their preferred course of action is the correct one.
There are a lot of problems with democracy. I don’t think the vast majority of people are capable of making objective, informed decisions about the best course of action for running a country. Myself included.
The only class of people who have access to democracy is the wealthy ruling class. When they collectively want something, they get it.
Well that’s the point of voting. Has nothing to do with money you have saved in the bank. Stop looking for reasons to be lazy and blame others for the outcome of it
Not voting for the bigger evil has been the way it has been for much longer than you think.
I mean, it didn’t use to be this bad. The Dems have been moving steadily right since the 90s. Clinton cut welfare, pushed mass incarceration, and deregulated Wall Street (and by repealing Glass-Steagall he helped create the 2008 financial collapse). Obama, for all his left-wing taking points, created a unprecedented mass surveillance program, a robot assassination program that has no congressional oversight, and when he had a filibuster-proof super-majority, he chose to pass the Heritage Foundations healthcare plan.
The Dems have been terrified of seeming too leftwing since Regan curb-stomped then, and as a result they’ve essentially become a center-right party, and there basically is no left anymore. That’s not the voters fault; it’s the fault of leadership that still thinks its 1980 and won’t abdicate any amount of power.
deleted by creator
the dnc
In fairness to the Senator, Trump also loudly and proudly says this all the time.
He’s not wrong.
And still, half of America probably is like: “don’t threaten me with good times”.
Maybe like a third or so. Unfortunately, due to our silly system, they have an outsized say.
If all it ever took was one bad president then democracy has already ended and it was always just a matter of time.
This reminds of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy when it describes a planet ruled by reptiles:
[It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see…" “You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?” “No,” said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, “nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.” “Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.” “I did,” said Ford. “It is.” “So,” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t people get rid of the lizards?” “It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.” “You mean they actually vote for the lizards?” “Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.” “But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?” “Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in.]
👆 This Douglas Adams bit is the exact situation we find ourselves in now.
One big lesson from Trump’s presidency was that many of the rules we thought constrained politicians were only “Gentlemen’s Agreements.” They held up because everyone agreed to abide by them. When Trump walked in, refused to abide by them, and wasn’t immediately struck by the political equivalent to lightning from heaven, all the politicians on the right decided that they could toss those pesky rules aside also.
all the politicians on the right decided that they could toss those pesky rules aside also.
And Democrats chose to remain straitjacketed by devotion to decorum.
It’s a really convenient excuse to not fucking do anything.
Wait… we could have been voting for lizards?
There have been a few dogs elected to Mayor
And at least three alcoholic goats, one after the other, in the same town.
It’s just a matter of time til we all die, too, but that doesn’t mean we need to kill ourselves now.
Bernie for pres.
Except he’s not running, and is too old to run again. So do the next best thing and listen to what he’s fucking saying. This is not a joke.
100% correct.
It survived four years of him and will survive four more.
Your biggest problem is that there is half the country willing to elect him again. Who will they elect next? Trump is not the end point on that particular axis. They were quite prepared to march into the Capitol building. What else are they prepared to do?
Trump is a symptom. Sure, you can stop him running. Hell, he’s a fat old man. Can’t be long until nature takes it’s course. But the country will still be sick.
It survived four years of him and will survive four more.
Because he had no fucking idea what he was doing and no plan. That mistake won’t be made a second time.
It survived four years of him and will survive four more.
If US Democracy is gone, how can it be that there’s (real) elections? There will be a dictator/King at the helm. Barron William Trump is the king-in-waiting at that point.
Democracy is dead then the US Constitution is dead and all ‘rights’ revoked.
Barron Trump will turn 18 on March 20th. That will make him fair game for the press. His mother has reportedly raised him without his father’s overall involvement. We have no idea what she’s been saying to him about his father. I’m very interested in seeing his first public interview.
He’s been at Castle Orange a heaping helping
America isn’t even the most democratic democracy in the world tho.
How is this a counter to what he said? The second-most democratic country in the world isn’t the most democratic either, it’d still be a bad thing for it to lose its democracy
America isn’t even the most democratic country in the Americas, but that’s clearly not the point they’re making.
If the title was “…end of world democracy” you’d have a point but given how much fascistic rhetoric and policy has increased around the world since trunpism it’s fair to say many countries are following the US lead here.
Yeah so maybe lets not let the Republicans fick it up even worse.
Curious! Who is?
It’s usually the Nordics and New Zealand topping the rankings each year, depending on which index you ask
Sadly it feels (unsure about factual numbers) that NZ is heading to similar styles as the US in terms of politics.
Two elections ago our slightly right of centre main party used popularist Trump/MAGA style campaigning and got slammed for it.
However the latest govt has bypassed a bunch of good process (using urgency) to just repeel a bunch of stuff the previous govt put in place.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The most possible democracy would require every single government decision requiring a vote by its citizens.
It would be pure chaos and incompetent
I think using process is pretty important and urgency should be used when needed, not just to get a bunch of anti-the last regime policies through.
This is how I understand our governments movements. Everything they have done this with this time could have gone through proper process.
Our leader even said that his politicians were uninterested in hearing what experts in the fields think or what the longer term issues might be from the decisions.
So have him arrested as an enemy of the state, like a fat dumb unathletic Will Smith.
Cut a liberal…
The American choice: Vote for the good orphan-crushing machine. Vote for the bad orphan-crushing machine.
Trump and Biden are so similar!
I literally can’t tell the difference between a guy who says he will be a dictator and one that doesn’t!!!
If you can’t see that both these candidates crushes orphans, as one is litterally supporting genocide, that crushes orphans, then God help you all.
It’s not a perfect solution for Biden to be president that’s true.
What’s your proposed solution to stopping Trump a literal aspiring dictator then?
Removed by mod
So you believe Trump will stop crushing orphans? He seems like an orphan crusher.
Removed by mod
Not exactly a hard choice. Either vote for fascism, or dont. Given the choice, which we still have, I think I’ll vote against fascism, thanks. Unless you would like to give us an amazing third choice in this situation?
Fascism popular definition is state and private companies working together to oppress peoples will. Ok, so who is using cia, fbi, doj, to persecute their political rival? Twitter files, anyone? Fb, google, legacy media all in bed with fascism too. Fascism entered the chat long ago, just not on the side you expected, therefore are still oblivious to it…
Oh, how dare they use legal mechanisms to try to prosecute a person who participated in insurrection against the United States? And yes, Facebook is a shining example of collusion with the radical leftists. As we all know, they have never helped our glorious leader Tonald Drump gain power.
The U.S. was never a democracy to begin with. The Constitution decreed that only rich white males had the vote. Excluding a majority of the population makes it an oligarchy, not a democracy.
I’d call it a “flawed democracy.” The ideals behind it were sound, but the execution left much to be improved upon. And we’ve made many improvements (though we still have a ways to go).
Still, even a flawed democracy is preferable to Dictator Trump.
Really they intended land owning men to elect a handful of people to go to the capitol and get together and elect a leader, hopefully respecting the votes of those back home.
So not really oligarchy. Citizens United and Bush v Gore means this system is a joke and the rich and powerful decide who leads, luckily Trump is neither.
If Trump had any influence he could have launched a single successful recount challenge or court case with ANY evidence of fraud or election misconduct. He couldn’t, so he relies completely on a fervent cult-like group of followers.
Never a democracy
I hear this more and more all over the place. Promoted everywhere seemingly to say it doesn’t matter if everything gets torn down and the US Constitution ripped up— because it’s all BS anyways, right?
The US is a Democratic Republic. Simple As.
then what about Silent Joe
the one who quietly sat in office while people starved on empty promises made to raise minimum wage, protect human rights and safeguard the ones we do have, to not increase funding for the military industrial complex, bolster environmental protection, reign in a militarized police force keeping the citizens trapped under their boots and citizens suffered physically and mentally in cages, expanding healthcare, journalist being silenced, and sure the list goes on and on in silence
“Not Being Trump” is not a qualification to run a country let alone move it into the current century
What about. What about. Are you saying trump is a better choice?
I actually love the “Silent Joe” line, because Trump is a notorious loudmouth. It even sounds like some playground nickname he’d come up with. Yeah, Biden doesn’t do nearly enough to achieve things, but the alternative is explicitly going to make shit much, MUCH worse. Things can be unequally bad, and the gulf has only gotten bigger with an overtly fascist movement as a major player.
Do the Democrats suck shit? Yeah, no one’s really denying it. But I’d rather fight against some milquetoast liberals than, I can’t stress this enough, literal fascists. Democrats can be dragged kicking and screaming to do something after they feel the winds changing. Republicans will be intentionally trying to make shit worse for the vast majority of people.
