• If the people in charge have the ability to end democracy, how can democracy be claimed to exist in the first place? Democracy is supposed to be our capability as individual citizens to regulate the people in power, but if they can turn that switch on or off, we don’t actually have that capability except as they choose to allow us to.

    It’s never a binary on/off switch. Democracy dies through slow corrosion. If we let Trump off with all of those crimes he committed, and allow him to get re-elected, all of those crimes are now unenforceable.

    Well, unenforceable for the rich and powerful. The poor has a different system of justice.

    Republicans literally have been splitting in half ever since Trump lost in 2020. They ousted their own Speaker, and are now trying to oust McConnell via public opinion. They had 2 primary candidates (DeSantis and Haley) who actually got national attention, and a decent-ish number of votes. What part of that is “in line”?

    DeSantis, Haley, and all of the Speaker nonsense has been infighting with old-guard rich assholes who want to break government more subtlety than how Trump and the rest of the Tea Party idiots do things. The GOP has been trying to steer out of this Trump trainwreck ever since it’s started, and they don’t have the control over their own populace than they used to. But, that’s not a good thing because everything that the GOP represents has been going even further extremist.

    But, do you know what happens when these candidates drop out? They immediately fall in line. They kiss Trump’s ass so hard that no callous insult he made at him is unforgivable. Hell, Trump accused Ted Cruz’s father of helping in the JFK assassination, and Ted was like, “Yeah, we should totally vote for this guy!”

    •  t3rmit3   ( @t3rmit3@beehaw.org ) OP
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      4 months ago

      It’s never a binary on/off switch. Democracy dies through slow corrosion.

      There are a lot of ways to define what qualifies as Democracy: is it the mere presence of voting? Is it the impact of that voting? Is it equal/ universal voting rights? Is it the ability to enforce voting outcomes? Or the ability for voters to choose what is voted on?

      Some of those are clear binaries, and some of those are gradations or thresholds.

      Personally, I think it has to be a combination of universal voting rights, voter-led ballot control(i.e. choosing what to vote about), and enforceability.

      To me, we’ve been failing as a democracy for a long time.

      If we let Trump off with all of those crimes he committed, and allow him to get re-elected, all of those crimes are now unenforceable.

      The unenforceability of those laws is not determined by his reelection, they’re determined by the actual court cases charging him with crimes. We do not have the ability to force SCOTUS to allow him to be held accountable, and comforting ourselves that we actually can, merely by not re-electing him, means you already realize the laws are not going to be enforced against him in the “Justice” System.

      But, do you know what happens when these candidates drop out? They immediately fall in line.

      Which is exactly what every Democrat challenger does as well.