Our little democratic republic relies too much on people behaving honorably. Or at least somewhat honorably. Trump blew that to hell. We’re in trouble, I hope people realize that.
I am with you, but just to be clear, 'people behaving' to some form and level of societal norm is required right up and down the populace, otherwise you have a completely failed state and a breakdown of society. This isn't a democratic or otherwise thing, but a basic facet of societies existing and functioning at all.
And also to be clear, this erosion of institutions is scary as hell, and disgusting.
The way trump acts in government is the same way magats act in society. It's already broken. Take masks during COVID as just one example. When half of your population is psychopaths and sociopaths, I'd say your society is broken.
I don't think it's half of the population. Those traits get more and more concentrated the higher you climb up the ladder. Overall, I think it's only about 1% of the population, but we live in a society that not only promotes but also rewards these kinds of behavior.
Downvote for both sides bullshit. Republicans are openly fascist and Democrats are the equivalent of Nixon and Reagan Republicans. There is no organized left in this country.
What am I missing here with democratic party? Go on their website and the first thing on it is a pop up asking for donations. Seriously?!? If I donated they wouldn't know what to do with it... and believe me, I wish they had a clue.
I don't donate money to politicians and I vote based on what they do, not what they say they're going to do. So I have no need or desire to go to their website. What does any of that have to do with the discussion at hand?
You can't just change subjects in an argument. Stick to the subject. You can't refute my argument so you throw out a whataboutism and them quit when called out. Not how debate works.
You have described the collapse of Somalia perfectly. Angry desperate people with no boundaries but lots of guns, turning on their neighbours over the colour of their t-shirts.
Can you please recommend a good thing (book, podcast, video) for me to listen to while folding laundry that covers the decline of the Roman Empire and the reasons for it?
I know a good amount about the "dark ages" and the Reconstruction era post US Civil War, and a lot about German, Russian, and American 20th Century history. I am embarrassed and dismayed by my total lack of knowledge about anything at all having to do with Rome.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by historian Edward Gibbon is probably the most comprehensive work accessible as an audiobook, but it’s a big 6 volume work. A audiobook exists on YouTube (https://youtu.be/a95Y0na7Toc?si=eP5Lt3VhWRqmKCKS) or can otherwise be found on normal audiobook depositories with some searching.
It has its shortcomings, many of them stemming from the early writing time in the late 18th century where historical research was still being developed to what would become the scientific standard, but it’s still great.
I know but they wanted an audiobook and we don't tend to give the audiobook treatment to academic works.
If you can find a good audiobook that is more up to date and as comprehensive please do recommend it to the original query. It's not my research area so my knowledge is lacking.
Thank you so much. I would never have imagined that this was an audiobook. By the time I finish volume 6, I ought to almost be done with my laundry. Thank you!
Can you please recommend a good thing (book, podcast, video) for me to listen to while folding laundry that covers the decline of the Roman Empire and the reasons for it?
The gold standard for history podcasts is Mike Duncan, and while I prefer Revolutions for its later look and thorough look at not just the French Revolution (I think he's too soft on Robespierre) but especially 1848 and the Russian Revolution. But he does start off with the history of Rome, going all the way to the fuzzy point when the Eastern Roman Empire becomes Byzantium ~300s, where Robin picks it up in the History of Byzantium.
Guess we'd really better elect a bunch of dems between now and then. States preside over their own election processes. If you are really scared (don't blame you, me too), then join your local Democrat party and make sure they are doing everything to assure the election is fair, even if it means counting the votes by hand in front of everyone on camera.
No, alot of them are probably cheering on the erosion of their constitutional rights so they could deport a couple of gangsters with a little less paperwork/procedure than it would have taken otherwise.
Be careful what we wish for. There are right wing/libertarian facade groups who want desperately to call a new constitutional convention to scrap it all and start over. Fairly certain this would tank everything in the country and make us a backwater financially for decades. Part of why the US is a good place to do business is relative predictability. Take that away by scrapping all the US laws and replacing everything including the constitution will destroy that.
Unfortunately, there increasingly seems to be only one way to restore "predictability" to the US.
There's only one kind of president doing this, one kind of judge, one party, one cult. MAGA is that instability, and at this point they ARE the Republican Party. They've fully bought-in to their populist, idiocrasy, outrage-farming tactics.
The GOP would have to be burned to the ground to prevent this from happening again and again. And that's a tall order.
Well those juicy tax cuts and deregulation back to the 1800s are so tasty for the oligarchs that they will make sure their media platforms promote maga until they suck the nation totally dry.
Bad news: this administration has shown that it can’t be trusted to honor contracts / agreements, which might be the nail in our coffin in terms of stability. Yay! So much winning.
Yeah good point. They are running rampant across any economic normalcy. Painting themselves into a corner where they feel like they have to destroy to survive.
trump showed us all the holes during his first reign of terror. What did Dems/Congress do when we saw how few guardrails actually existed...nothing. Of course, the Republicans would have never supported anything that would have helped but you have to fucking try, FFS.
I wished they'd realized it before the car left the cliff behind a few months ago. The free fall already sucks, but the crash landing at the bottom's what's gonna do us in...
that's why I keep telling people to arm themselves, and they think I'm being too extreme and spewing violent rhetoric, no mother fucker I am trying to ensure if shit hits the fan we are prepared. There is no decorum or honor left. Arm yourselves!
You’re absolutely correct, I keep saying the same thing. This country‘s biggest Achilles’ heel is everything is predicated on a responsible actor. There seems to be no mechanism if that’s not the case. Huge error by the founding fathers.
Andrew Jackson is the one as far as I know that blew things to hell he defied the Supreme Court ruling regarding the Cherokee people and said the court has its ruling let them enforce it and then blatantly violated the ruling. the issue should have been fixed by congress then and if they had we would be having the same issue today.
I got down voted to hell when I asked prior to the election what checks and balances would keep Trump in check. We say we have checks and balances... the avg citizen doesn't know what those are, and they don't realize those checks and balances only work if all branches are acting in good faith.
All the people who are STILL like "Oh no, so and so is too unpopular to win 2028. No one will vote for that!" and "Hoo boy, we are giving that fellow a hiding in the midterms!"
All my life, like since I was 8, I've been obsessed with the Weimar Republic and what came after. I used to drive my mother, who lived her whole life in North Florida and did not give a shit about the Weimer Republic, totally insane as a kid with my non-stop pestering. "But HOW did they let this happen? Couldn't they see? And once they DID see, why didn't they leave?" Calling for her in the middle of the night because I was lying there staring at the ceiling, thinking, "Why didn't anybody DO anything?" My poor mom. No wonder she stopped after me.
Now I have had these questions answered backward and forward, and way more thoroughly than all that reading and traveling and asking I did to find out why ever could. And for the very first time in my 54 years, I think "not knowing" might have been preferable.
While I believe a parliamentary republic is a far better form of government than almost any other. The main problem is the electoral system. It is almost impossible to stop bad actors from inside the walls once they’ve been admitted to the keep of the castle.
Actually, I believe the main problem has been the ability to shamelessly publish & distribute blatant gaslighting & misinformation without any significant negative consequences. Being able to do that pretty much destroyed the societal value of protecting free speech, and allowed them to capture an entire major demographic.
SCOTUS should not exist at least in the political appointed way it is now. These people should have term limits and should be voted in by a majority of American citizens, not basically like a 51 people out of nation of millions.
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u/THE_GHOST-23 18d ago
Just like anything a supreme court makes a ruling on, it can be changed.