• FenrirIII
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      285 months ago

      Rich, white Republicans don’t go to prison unless they have a pardon lined up.

        • @Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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          25 months ago

          He’s not rich mathematically, but according to the system specifically built to protect anyone who’s ever been rich, he still is. Powerful too.

          So yeah, the only way he ever sees the inside of a jail cell is if he fucks over a lot of other extremely privileged people and they acknowledge it.

    • @WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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      135 months ago

      The US political system has countless weaknesses, but Trump has shone a light on one of the deepest weaknesses inherent to all democracies — what happens if/when the majority support fascism, authoritarianism, a holy war to genocide X, etc (not the case atm, but Trump having more than 1% of the vote is insanity).

      You could argue that moral citizens should take up arms against tyranny, but that appears to be what the majority of MAGA’s believe they are doing, and would be anti-democratic, so you’re ultimately just hoping that the more moral and ethical are better at slaughtering the least moral and ethical — not much of a failsafe if you ask me.

      I guess my point is that I’m not surprised we have no evidence of other intelligent life, and the great filter preventing universal colonisation seems to simply be life itself…

      • @frezik@midwest.social
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        5 months ago

        The majority don’t support it. Fascists never do. They get by with about 20% of the population directly supporting them, another 10-20% having reservations but being more afraid of leftists removing their cushy position in a stratified society, and a final 10% or so centrists who vote for their side because they voted for the other side last time.

        Trump lost the popular vote both times, and only got in once because of a poorly conceived electoral college system. The German Nazi Party got 44% of the vote in 1933–much of that with voter intimidation–and then an old guy with a family title handed him the chancellorship. Mussolini never had a vote in his favor at all–his party led violent protests against the existing Prime Minister, and the King handed the job over to Mussolini.

        They don’t win at democracy. They win by exploiting holes in the democratic process and the failure of liberalism to make things better for people.

    • @HAL_9_TRILLION@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      135 months ago

      If it lets an insurrectionist like Trump on the ballot, the supreme court will be putting out a welcome mat to autocracy

      And they will be among the first up against the wall if that day comes, you can bet on it. I wonder if they have the slightest shred of self-preservation. If they are more afraid of maga now and not what maga will become, then their self-preservation instinct is badly flawed. We’ll see.

      • osarusan
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        75 months ago

        I think the right-leaning justices know pretty well that their positions are safe. They’re already benefiting immensely from corruption. When democracy dies and they have no obligation to the law, they’ll do whatever it takes to enrich themselves further.

        • @HAL_9_TRILLION@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          15 months ago

          Well, when democracy dies they’re not needed at all. Not being necessary is a dangerous position to be in. People who aren’t necessary are easily eliminated. And of course, there’s no incentive to pay off people who aren’t necessary.

          I say if they have an ounce of self-reflection, they would know this is true and it would make them nervous. But you’re right, they probably don’t.

      • @frezik@midwest.social
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        35 months ago

        Roberts doesn’t. His response to the American people who were angry about the Dobbs abortion decision was that they should shut up and listen to the court’s authority.

    • @Mamertine@lemmy.world
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      25 months ago

      It’s in the constitution! That sacred document that was divinely inspired. Granted it’s an amendment so it wasn’t part of Jefferson’s initial creation, but it’s been in there for 150 years.

      • osarusan
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        15 months ago

        That’s a terrible argument against it.

        If there’s a bad vibe to eliminating a candidate for following laws that were explicitly written down 150 years ago to stop such a candidate, then what kind of vibe does it give off if we flat out ignore that same law?

        If we allow ourselves to be swayed by the idea that taking away a very specific privilege from a person gives off a bad vibe, then we’d be undermining our entire justice system and the very concept of law itself.

        The law is unambiguous, and we must follow it. If we don’t, then the rule of law truly has no meaning.

    • @boogetyboo@aussie.zone
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      55 months ago

      Definitely seems like he hurt himself gripping something. Caught a falling knife would make sense if he ate anything that required cutting. Maybe held a frozen railing and lost skin?

  • @EatATaco@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    It’s the same group of dopes who have latched onto the ignorant “we’re not a democracy, were a constitutional republic!” who are now arguing that disqualifying candidates that the cotus disqualifies is denying them their right to vote for whom they want.

    • @ToastedPlanet
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      15 months ago

      Always tell those people that we are a federal presidential constitutional republic or fpcr for short. Then tell them that is a form of democracy.

      • @EatATaco@lemm.ee
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        25 months ago

        I’ve debated it plenty, it appears they either cannot grasp the difference between a direct democracy and a representative democracy. I’ve even had plenty try to argue that directly electing the president (effectively a representative for the whole US on the world stage) would make us a democracy and no longer a representative democracy. lol

  • Jaysyn
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    165 months ago

    If we literally follow the Constitution, Trump is already barred from office & needs Congress to vote to remove that disability.

  • @FrowingFostek@lemmy.world
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    115 months ago

    I love Steven Greenhouse. ‘Beaten down worked up’ set the groundwork for many discussions I had with my coworkers on worker rights. Also, he warns us against Niki Haley and her high heels.

    With that being said I think she is a larger threat to labor rights than any other candidate for the GOP. Trump being the largest threat to democracy.

    • @ToastedPlanet
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      65 months ago

      Unfortunately, I think Project 2025 is the equalizer when it comes to who is worst and why. As long as the Republicans are dead set on forming a christofascist dictatorship it may not matter which Republican dictator we hypothetically get for domestic issues. And I’m not confident that any of them would be better on international issues either.

  • @Snapz@lemmy.world
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    105 months ago

    If you’re not worried about the 2025 stuff, look at the Supreme Court, how little it took to quickly and fundamentally shift that to a broken body with absolutely zero integrity - now times that dangerous transition with every single aspect of government.

    Your relatives who vote for trump are literally voting for the end of American democracy. They’ve had there’s, they are going to die sometime soon, and they are tossing a match over their shoulders into the gasoline soaked mass they created behind them.

  • @selokichtli@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    Imagine leaving the White House like Trump did, and to live in a place where this orange guy is a serious contender to occupy the presidency once again after four years.

    Maybe this democracy is not worthy of protection. With all due respect, American democracy may need way more than stopping Trump’s second term.

    • @frezik@midwest.social
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      45 months ago

      That’s not much of a solution, either. Don’t like what American democracy is doing now? Just wait until it doesn’t care about having pretenses to invade other countries, or even use nuclear weapons.

      • @selokichtli@lemmy.ml
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        15 months ago

        Sure as hell I will not try to fix the thing. It’s sad, but maybe Americans will have to do it to truly learn something this time. It’s not like the rest of the world feels safe with America’s attitudes towards war anyway.

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    36 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Right now, however, I worry that the supreme court’s rightwing supermajority, in its anticipated rush to prohibit states from kicking Donald Trump off the ballot, will turn the constitution into a suicide pact.

    When the court considers that case, the six conservative justices might focus on their concerns about infuriating rightwing voters, their political soulmates, if they rule that the constitution requires that Trump be disqualified as an insurrectionist.

    He unarguably gave “aid or comfort” to the January 6 assault on the Capitol, which was essentially a coup attempt that sought to prevent the rightfully elected president, Joe Biden, from taking office.

    If the supreme court’s six rightwing justices allow Trump to stay on the ballot, they can do so only by turning their backs on the methods of constitutional interpretation that they have repeatedly trumpeted: textualism and originalism.

    But the two constitutional scholars who led the way in arguing that Trump should be disqualified – William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen – are highly regarded conservative members of the Federalist Society.

    In decades past, the US supreme court did not shrink from issuing decisions that offended and angered millions of Americans, whether it was enraging many white southerners by barring school segregation in Brown v Board of Education, or infuriating millions of women by overturning Roe v Wade, or angering a wide swath of Democrats by cutting short the vote count to deliver victory to George W Bush over Al Gore.


    The original article contains 1,569 words, the summary contains 242 words. Saved 85%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • blazera
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    25 months ago

    Its literally anti-democratic. I dunno what definitions of democracy anyone here is using, but its a system by which people decide via votes.

    • @jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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      5 months ago

      It’s not anti-democratic to force candidates to abide by existing law.

      For example: AOC couldn’t run in 2020 because the Constitution states you have to be 35 to be President and she would not have been old enough.

      That’s not anti-democratic, that’s the “you must be this tall to ride this ride” rule.

      For the same reason, removing an insurrectionist from the ballot is not anti-democratic. They’ve proven they can’t be trusted and so aren’t qualified for office, and the 14th Amendment disqualifies them.

      See: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-faces-14th-amendment-suits-cuoy-griffin-speaks/story?id=103009491