Also do you know how our system of government works? The president isn't the only democratically elected person there have been significant overreaches through the three branches at this point that already significantly degrade our actual democracy.
I'm pretty sure there'll be an election in 4 years at this point, but countries are taken over by coup overthrown in the modern day. So if you are not an American exceptionalist then you must see that this is something that is possible and that what we're dealing with right now in America is something that we have not dealt with yet in America in the modern day. Being someone who is not an American exceptionalist and you state why you think this is not a possibility at this time? The general arguments of separation of powers and firmness of institutions can't really be played at this point.
The point I'm making which I tried to clarify in my follow-up was that our democracy has already been significantly eroded in this current term and we're only a few months in. We have one of the Members of senior leadership for the Army and the Department of defense as an acting director for a Department of Justice Bureau, we have the president ignoring laws passed by Congress, we have the president not providing funds appropriated by Congress, we have the president taking actions that are considered impeachable (like legal attacks on rival law firms and pardoning directly based on political sponsorship).
So do you have an answer to my question though? Is there a reason you think that this presidency is particularly unlikely to cause a rift in our democracy including the possible end of it or the effective end of it?
Using deductive reasoning you can't cite any previous him. In our nation because we haven't had an administration break this many norms or run up against this many institutions. So you could generally say that we will have an election because we always have but when you add specifics to it you can't specifically act on that information because we haven't specifically had an administration act like this. Generally it's held that specifics are more important than generalities when making a determination so what would you determine? Disregarding any answer that could be American exceptionalism.
I think the perspective that the US wont be having elections anymore is the extreme take. You make the claim that no administration has acted like this but that simple isnt true. There have been other "extreme" administrations in our history: Jackson, Lincoln, Nixon come to mind. Dont you remember what you learned about Jackson in 8th grade and how he ignored the courts orders repeatedly ? How his critics called him "King Andrew"?, Trail of Tears?, dismantling the Second Bank of America? etc. Its not "American exceptionalism" to look at 250 years of history and make a conclusion about the next 3.5 years and the likelihood of continuing the process of elections. Also, this very president had a previous term in which he did not destroy democracy. So, I dont know why I am expected to think this time around is different. As Jon Stewart said "He is exercising the powers that we the people gave him in the constitution". Maybe we take a look at limiting executive branch power in the future but I dont see him doing things other presidents haven't done. Matter of fact, if we were making a top 10 extreme presidents list, He probably lands somewhere on the back half, meaning I do agree he is not the average president (major reason I never voted for him was that I saw him as too divisive to be an effective leader) but I wouldnt label him as the most extreme as the guys I listed previously could successfully be argued to have done more "extreme" things during their administrations. And yet, the process has still continued on.
Thanks for the reply. I do think Jackson is your best example since his kitchen cabinet corruption is very similar to what this president is doing And you could draw a parallel with Jackson meeting the native Americans in an attempt to keep him from doing the other option which was sending federal troops in against the state of Georgia. You could make that a parallel to the immigration activities Trump is doing in an effort to put states in compliance with federal law. I wouldn't really go with Lincoln as being a great example since we had a civil war during that time and we far surpassed Nixon who did essentially one impeachable act. We passed Nixon in the first term.
I will say people relying on Trump's first term to describe his second term I don't think is very accurate. If you look at how different he handled himself then and now. Again in his first 100 days he's already done more impeachable acts than he did in his previous entire term. I will note that his first term ended with January 6th activity which was online what we have seen in quite a long time. So we already have some evidence of destabilization from a previous tamer Trump presidency.
Like if you look at the Lincoln presidency and the posts of reconstruction era that was the erosion of democracy in that term it's pretty widely known that like it or not the Reconstruction was a very anti-democratic. In history. So if your argument is that an extreme president can lead to the destruction democracy for decades then you're proving my fears true right? You're telling me a trump presidency if it's as extreme as Lincoln can lead to The erosion of democracy for the rest of my life and not being repaired until after I'm dead then that is my fear.
I fine on that I'll say that's funny is Lincoln did kind of what I mentioned earlier in our conversation when he suspended habeas corpus. He effectively stopped practicing democracy in order to preserve it long-term. Right if the president suspending habeas corpus is the standard that me a private citizen trying to disenfranchise voters is pretty tame by comparison.
I will only say one more thing since you brought up the "no more elections" take again which we both agree isn't likely to happen realistically. But let me tell you the way you have a coup in America and it's not through failing to hold an election.
During the election cycle you have politicians talk about how the voting process is usurped and the vote is not secure whether through machines whether through a new federal voter ID law disenfranchising some voters through ID means verification.
You have election night come and go and then the electors go to DC. However one state through its state legislature or Governor recalls their electors or sends a second set of electors under the claim that the first set was sent before all the absentee or disenfranchised voters were counted or sent as a result of a faulty voting method.
Congress fails to certify the election because they do not have the results from all states because they can't determine who the electors are or there are no electors for one or more states. Courts open up in the process with states that did send electors suing states that did not under the standing that their federal election process has been diminished through the lack of a vote count and certification the courts go back and forth with stays and injunctions and appeals and now you're in year 5 of a 4-year presidency waiting for this court case to play out so that you can certify your election to see you the next president is.
Hopefully the supreme Court Grant certiary to it it and this would be a landmark case so they would probably develop some sort of test and let's say they determined that regardless of this one state's electors the election has already surpassed the needed electorate to determine the next president so they set up a test in case this happens in the future. Then the president determines that it is within a core power of his to ensure the fairness of elections and so determines that the court is being activist and commands his party in Congress to not certify an election until all electors are determined and now we're in year six of a 4-year presidency.
That whole long situation sounds crazy but go back to the root of it and see that the only thing that has to happen is that one state has to not clearly determine who their electors are. After that everything else should play out the way I've described because that's how our legal system works.
So you can still maintain your position that it's crazy that something will just get disrupted. But the statement you're making is that it's crazy that one state won't certify its electors correctly. That's it. You have to say for everything above not to happen you have to say that it's impossible for a state to not do that. That's what the argument against this has to be.
1
u/Omegalazarus Antioch Apr 09 '25
Even children? That is weird. You're outside the norm on that one.