I had intended to post this as a comment on your post today, about Trump's attempted assassination.
I am fond of your work. But after reading your free posts for months, what finally brought me to subscribe was the desire to comment on that post. So it was a bit annoying to see that the comments for it were closed.
Perhaps this is a matter where you do not currently wish to discuss things more than you already have. If so, I understand. There is so much hatred in politics, I would hate to be the person filtering comments for such a discussion.
Yet still there is a sense of urgent need to discuss matters, all the same. I am embarrassed to admit it, but when you sent out that poll a while ago about what your readers wanted to see. I did not respond to it, because the truth was that I was most interested in hearing you speak more of politics. But that sounded like such a crass answer to give.
In any case. I thought I should post what I had to say here. So that in the case that you are not averse to responding to it, there was a chance it could be responded to.
First, I wish to say that I appreciated your post greatly. It is a very valuable message. And though it is likely to fall on deaf ears, I certainly wish more people could come to accept it. I truly believe this.
...And yet. Of course, while there is no end of propogandic hyperbole in this world. A large part of what has people so unfathomably combative right now is that there does seem to be in many ways a threat to US democracy that is unparalleled in recent history.
I believe I remember the key step that allowed Hitler to step up from being a politician and become a dictator. The Reichstag Government building was set ablaze by an extremist who had no qualms about killing politicians. In the aftermath, everyone was so frightened and desperate to prevent a perceived threat to overthrow the government, that the head chancellor gave Hitler Emergency Powers allowing him to curtail people's rights in order to crush dissent. Soon after, Democracy died.
That sounds...awfully relevant to the current political environment. We have a thousand tons of extremist dynamite just waiting to go off. Some of it did, yesterday. But there's still a whole lot of live nitroglycerin left to ignite.
Hitler was much more competent at achieving his goals than Trump. I readily agree. I'm just doubtful that matters.
Hitler never had this much democratic support. Hitler's party did not ever win highest office through fair election. The last mostly free election the Nazi party ran in had them taking 43 percent of the votes.
The difference between 43% and 51% is vast. Even in a properly functioning state, Democracy is mostly just a word meaning "the rule of the majority." There are few limits on how nightmarish a democracy can be, once the majority has allowed it.
Our government and constitution is not so brittle as 1930s germany was. But it still looks quite vulnerable to me.
I do not consider myself a very educated person in the matter of politics, so maybe I made a big mistake in my logic. If so, please tell me where I went wrong.
We have three branches in government. If Trump wins, he heads the executive branch, can dismiss anyone in it at his leisure, and chooses all the appointment candidates for the head positions of that branch.
The Supreme Court is already overwhelmingly Republican. Even if they still have some principles guiding their actions, they seem to be gradually trending more in the direction of the goals that Trump wants.
Suppose then that the Republican party also ends 2024 holding a majority in both the House and Senate. It hardly seems unlikely. And while it is far from unanimous, it seems that there are very many politicians at the top of the docket who display an unwavering loyalty to Trump.
What is the mechanism that will stop Trump from overthrowing democracy if he tries to? The rest of the Republican party? Do you expect that a full 50% of Republican politicians are ready to oppose their president, no matter how much harassment and threats and attempts to remove them from office are made? As you have keenly noted, both sides now see the other party as basically the devil. Which makes people increasingly reluctant to try to undermine "their side."
We have a constitution and amendments. But we also have a great deal of experience finding loopholes around them. I imagine you would say that this is what happened in the past. For example, when an amendment made for the purposes of equal treatment eventually resulted in businesses taking quotas on how many minorities they need to hire.
A law based on a loophole can be stricken down as unconstitutional. But who is going to strike it down? Not Trump. Not the Democrats. Probably not enough of the Senate or House Republicans.
Maybe the Supreme Court. But is that what we are hanging the fate of hundreds of millions of lives on? Whether the number of judges willing to go along with Trump's insanity numbers 3 or 5?
What else is there? What else is likely to stop him if he wins?
This is a genuine and heartfelt question. I would love to hear about whatever these other safety valves might be. Then I could rest a bit more easily, and stop making contingency plans to move to Portugal the second Democracy enters its final death throes.
I'm not sure if you accept a long question like this, or if you wanted a more succinct question. If the latter is what you were seeking, I would phrase it thus:
"If the Republican Party wins a majority in the House and Senate. And Trump wins, and makes it to the end of his term without suffering a heart attack. Is the chance of the 2028 election being decisively rigged in favor of Republicans more or less than 10%? And what are the main factors that cause you to think the odds are as low as you claim they are?"
I had intended to post this as a comment on your post today, about Trump's attempted assassination.
I am fond of your work. But after reading your free posts for months, what finally brought me to subscribe was the desire to comment on that post. So it was a bit annoying to see that the comments for it were closed.
Perhaps this is a matter where you do not currently wish to discuss things more than you already have. If so, I understand. There is so much hatred in politics, I would hate to be the person filtering comments for such a discussion.
Yet still there is a sense of urgent need to discuss matters, all the same. I am embarrassed to admit it, but when you sent out that poll a while ago about what your readers wanted to see. I did not respond to it, because the truth was that I was most interested in hearing you speak more of politics. But that sounded like such a crass answer to give.
In any case. I thought I should post what I had to say here. So that in the case that you are not averse to responding to it, there was a chance it could be responded to.
First, I wish to say that I appreciated your post greatly. It is a very valuable message. And though it is likely to fall on deaf ears, I certainly wish more people could come to accept it. I truly believe this.
...And yet. Of course, while there is no end of propogandic hyperbole in this world. A large part of what has people so unfathomably combative right now is that there does seem to be in many ways a threat to US democracy that is unparalleled in recent history.
I believe I remember the key step that allowed Hitler to step up from being a politician and become a dictator. The Reichstag Government building was set ablaze by an extremist who had no qualms about killing politicians. In the aftermath, everyone was so frightened and desperate to prevent a perceived threat to overthrow the government, that the head chancellor gave Hitler Emergency Powers allowing him to curtail people's rights in order to crush dissent. Soon after, Democracy died.
That sounds...awfully relevant to the current political environment. We have a thousand tons of extremist dynamite just waiting to go off. Some of it did, yesterday. But there's still a whole lot of live nitroglycerin left to ignite.
Hitler was much more competent at achieving his goals than Trump. I readily agree. I'm just doubtful that matters.
Hitler never had this much democratic support. Hitler's party did not ever win highest office through fair election. The last mostly free election the Nazi party ran in had them taking 43 percent of the votes.
The difference between 43% and 51% is vast. Even in a properly functioning state, Democracy is mostly just a word meaning "the rule of the majority." There are few limits on how nightmarish a democracy can be, once the majority has allowed it.
Our government and constitution is not so brittle as 1930s germany was. But it still looks quite vulnerable to me.
I do not consider myself a very educated person in the matter of politics, so maybe I made a big mistake in my logic. If so, please tell me where I went wrong.
We have three branches in government. If Trump wins, he heads the executive branch, can dismiss anyone in it at his leisure, and chooses all the appointment candidates for the head positions of that branch.
The Supreme Court is already overwhelmingly Republican. Even if they still have some principles guiding their actions, they seem to be gradually trending more in the direction of the goals that Trump wants.
Suppose then that the Republican party also ends 2024 holding a majority in both the House and Senate. It hardly seems unlikely. And while it is far from unanimous, it seems that there are very many politicians at the top of the docket who display an unwavering loyalty to Trump.
What is the mechanism that will stop Trump from overthrowing democracy if he tries to? The rest of the Republican party? Do you expect that a full 50% of Republican politicians are ready to oppose their president, no matter how much harassment and threats and attempts to remove them from office are made? As you have keenly noted, both sides now see the other party as basically the devil. Which makes people increasingly reluctant to try to undermine "their side."
We have a constitution and amendments. But we also have a great deal of experience finding loopholes around them. I imagine you would say that this is what happened in the past. For example, when an amendment made for the purposes of equal treatment eventually resulted in businesses taking quotas on how many minorities they need to hire.
A law based on a loophole can be stricken down as unconstitutional. But who is going to strike it down? Not Trump. Not the Democrats. Probably not enough of the Senate or House Republicans.
Maybe the Supreme Court. But is that what we are hanging the fate of hundreds of millions of lives on? Whether the number of judges willing to go along with Trump's insanity numbers 3 or 5?
What else is there? What else is likely to stop him if he wins?
This is a genuine and heartfelt question. I would love to hear about whatever these other safety valves might be. Then I could rest a bit more easily, and stop making contingency plans to move to Portugal the second Democracy enters its final death throes.
I'm not sure if you accept a long question like this, or if you wanted a more succinct question. If the latter is what you were seeking, I would phrase it thus:
"If the Republican Party wins a majority in the House and Senate. And Trump wins, and makes it to the end of his term without suffering a heart attack. Is the chance of the 2028 election being decisively rigged in favor of Republicans more or less than 10%? And what are the main factors that cause you to think the odds are as low as you claim they are?"
Hi! Somehow I missed this! Great question! Give me some time and I'll take a crack at it. Thank you for the question and for subscribing!