She didn't have to marry that cockstain. She didn't have to plagiarize her RNC speech (or lie about writing it herself). She didn't have to have her lawyers try to sue a newspaper over claims another person merely had a conversation with her.
She is not trapped with Donald Trump. She is complicit in his misogynistic racist hatemongering. And if I never hear her name again I will feel better off
So, Trump kinda represents an American attitude towards the Presidency that a sizeable percentage of Americans do believe and value. This is not a viewpoint all Americans hold, or even most Americans. But it exists and it's worth talking about.
And that is the view of the President as Dictator. I mean Dictator in the classic, Roman Republic sense. A person temporarily elevated to supreme authority to deal with crises and address serious issues in a way that conventional authority cannot. It also tends to stray into Dictator in a modern, "Strongman" Fascist sense.
These Americans believe the President should basically be temporary absolute powers, to hand down edicts from on high, create laws, right wrongs, fix broken systems, and be a warrior king.
Look at the way Trump attacks Hillary for being ineffectual as a Senator, asking her why she didn't just do things she wanted to do, as if as a single Senator she had such power. In Trump's view, if she was strong enough, she would have, because that's how he thinks the system should work.
Look at how Trump talks about creating laws (even though the President can't create laws), jailing his political opponents, overturning state laws, revising agencies he would have no power over as President. He doesn't understand how the Presidency actually works; he understands how he thinks it should work, and that's a view he shares with many Americans.
It's why I repeatedly call Trump a literal Fascist. It's not just because his social politics are hideous. It's because his views on what a President is and should be is a Dictatorship. He doesn't want to be President according to the Constitution, he wants to be President according to the imagination of pop culture. He wants to be a Dictator.
And millions of Americans agree. Even if they don't want Trump specifically to be Dictator, they still think of the office of the President this way.
Another side of this is that this is the kind of power a CEO (or a small business owner even) has over their employees. It's no shock that the party that hates unions, minimum wages, workplace safety laws, and environmental regulations feels that the "boss" should operate with complete authority over their subjects, and that their standard bearer wants to bring that mentality into government.
A lot of Americans spend 40-80 hours a week in a dictatorship. The only grace is that they have the option to either quit and find a better dictatorship or become dictator of their own company, if they can afford it.
This is true. What's frightening about this viewpoint is that Trump isn't even good at running a business. Like even if emotionally a person just wants "The Boss", they want a hard-ass, no-nonsense shark of a CEO to be their President/Dictator, Trump sucks at it.
He's not Elon Musk, who by all accounts is kind of a fucking asshole but at least is making money had over fist legally and is pushing the boundaries of science and shit. He's not even Steve Jobs, who again was a shitty person and arguably an intellectual thief but again, very financially successful and brought incredible technology to the world.
Trump is a con-artist who has helped create luxury real estate of dubious quality, casinos of poor value (that actually lost money), sham universities, and other shoddy products and scams. He's not even good at it.
I think Trump scratches at a specific American emotional itch. Beyond the hateful deplorables who like him because he embodies their racism or sexism or religious bigotry or whatever, he also embodies the idiotic America cultural viewpoint that there's no such thing as a poor American, just a temporarily inconvenienced billionaire American who hasn't had things go their way yet. That any fucking idiot can be a "billionaire" if they got enough moxy and shit. For people who believe in a particularly toxic and self-destructive form of the American Dream, Trump is evidence.
So, Trump kinda represents an American attitude towards the Presidency that a sizeable percentage of Americans do believe and value. This is not a viewpoint all Americans hold, or even most Americans. But it exists and it's worth talking about.
And that is the view of the President as Dictator. I mean Dictator in the classic, Roman Republic sense. A person temporarily elevated to supreme authority to deal with crises and address serious issues in a way that conventional authority cannot. It also tends to stray into Dictator in a modern, "Strongman" Fascist sense.
These Americans believe the President should basically be temporary absolute powers, to hand down edicts from on high, create laws, right wrongs, fix broken systems, and be a warrior king.
Look at the way Trump attacks Hillary for being ineffectual as a Senator, asking her why she didn't just do things she wanted to do, as if as a single Senator she had such power. In Trump's view, if she was strong enough, she would have, because that's how he thinks the system should work.
Look at how Trump talks about creating laws (even though the President can't create laws), jailing his political opponents, overturning state laws, revising agencies he would have no power over as President. He doesn't understand how the Presidency actually works; he understands how he thinks it should work, and that's a view he shares with many Americans.
It's why I repeatedly call Trump a literal Fascist. It's not just because his social politics are hideous. It's because his views on what a President is and should be is a Dictatorship. He doesn't want to be President according to the Constitution, he wants to be President according to the imagination of pop culture. He wants to be a Dictator.
And millions of Americans agree. Even if they don't want Trump specifically to be Dictator, they still think of the office of the President this way.
There's definitely something about Presidential systems that inclines people to excessive reverence for the position. I don't think it's unique to America, and I suspect it's fundamentally baked into whole the direct-election-of-head-of-state thing. I don't know if it's inherently a bad thing - personally I find it vaguely distasteful in a small-r republican way, because it smacks of divine appointment and hagiography. But god knows I've never been asked to sit down and come up with the founding rules for a long-lasting democracy, and maybe it helps avoid revolving door impeachments.
So, Trump kinda represents an American attitude towards the Presidency that a sizeable percentage of Americans do believe and value. This is not a viewpoint all Americans hold, or even most Americans. But it exists and it's worth talking about.
And that is the view of the President as Dictator. I mean Dictator in the classic, Roman Republic sense. A person temporarily elevated to supreme authority to deal with crises and address serious issues in a way that conventional authority cannot. It also tends to stray into Dictator in a modern, "Strongman" Fascist sense.
These Americans believe the President should basically be temporary absolute powers, to hand down edicts from on high, create laws, right wrongs, fix broken systems, and be a warrior king.
Look at the way Trump attacks Hillary for being ineffectual as a Senator, asking her why she didn't just do things she wanted to do, as if as a single Senator she had such power. In Trump's view, if she was strong enough, she would have, because that's how he thinks the system should work.
Look at how Trump talks about creating laws (even though the President can't create laws), jailing his political opponents, overturning state laws, revising agencies he would have no power over as President. He doesn't understand how the Presidency actually works; he understands how he thinks it should work, and that's a view he shares with many Americans.
It's why I repeatedly call Trump a literal Fascist. It's not just because his social politics are hideous. It's because his views on what a President is and should be is a Dictatorship. He doesn't want to be President according to the Constitution, he wants to be President according to the imagination of pop culture. He wants to be a Dictator.
And millions of Americans agree. Even if they don't want Trump specifically to be Dictator, they still think of the office of the President this way.
Another side of this is that this is the kind of power a CEO (or a small business owner even) has over their employees. It's no shock that the party that hates unions, minimum wages, workplace safety laws, and environmental regulations feels that the "boss" should operate with complete authority over their subjects, and that their standard bearer wants to bring that mentality into government.
A lot of Americans spend 40-80 hours a week in a dictatorship. The only grace is that they have the option to either quit and find a better dictatorship or become dictator of their own company, if they can afford it.
This is true. What's frightening about this viewpoint is that Trump isn't even good at running a business. Like even if emotionally a person just wants "The Boss", they want a hard-ass, no-nonsense shark of a CEO to be their President/Dictator, Trump sucks at it.
He's not Elon Musk, who by all accounts is kind of a fucking asshole but at least is making money had over fist legally and is pushing the boundaries of science and shit. He's not even Steve Jobs, who again was a shitty person and arguably an intellectual thief but again, very financially successful and brought incredible technology to the world.
Trump is a con-artist who has helped create luxury real estate of dubious quality, casinos of poor value (that actually lost money), sham universities, and other shoddy products and scams. He's not even good at it.
I think Trump scratches at a specific American emotional itch. Beyond the hateful deplorables who like him because he embodies their racism or sexism or religious bigotry or whatever, he also embodies the idiotic America cultural viewpoint that there's no such thing as a poor American, just a temporarily inconvenienced billionaire American who hasn't had things go their way yet. That any fucking idiot can be a "billionaire" if they got enough moxy and shit. For people who believe in a particularly toxic and self-destructive form of the American Dream, Trump is evidence.
it's weird since he's the son of a billionaire and was loaned money, given positions and granted influence by his father
like he's the furthest thing from pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and becoming a self-made man
So, Trump kinda represents an American attitude towards the Presidency that a sizeable percentage of Americans do believe and value. This is not a viewpoint all Americans hold, or even most Americans. But it exists and it's worth talking about.
And that is the view of the President as Dictator. I mean Dictator in the classic, Roman Republic sense. A person temporarily elevated to supreme authority to deal with crises and address serious issues in a way that conventional authority cannot. It also tends to stray into Dictator in a modern, "Strongman" Fascist sense.
These Americans believe the President should basically be temporary absolute powers, to hand down edicts from on high, create laws, right wrongs, fix broken systems, and be a warrior king.
Look at the way Trump attacks Hillary for being ineffectual as a Senator, asking her why she didn't just do things she wanted to do, as if as a single Senator she had such power. In Trump's view, if she was strong enough, she would have, because that's how he thinks the system should work.
Look at how Trump talks about creating laws (even though the President can't create laws), jailing his political opponents, overturning state laws, revising agencies he would have no power over as President. He doesn't understand how the Presidency actually works; he understands how he thinks it should work, and that's a view he shares with many Americans.
It's why I repeatedly call Trump a literal Fascist. It's not just because his social politics are hideous. It's because his views on what a President is and should be is a Dictatorship. He doesn't want to be President according to the Constitution, he wants to be President according to the imagination of pop culture. He wants to be a Dictator.
And millions of Americans agree. Even if they don't want Trump specifically to be Dictator, they still think of the office of the President this way.
There's definitely something about Presidential systems that inclines people to excessive reverence for the position. I don't think it's unique to America, and I suspect it's fundamentally baked into whole the direct-election-of-head-of-state thing. I don't know if it's inherently a bad thing - personally I find it vaguely distasteful in a small-r republican way, because it smacks of divine appointment and hagiography. But god knows I've never been asked to sit down and come up with the founding rules for a long-lasting democracy, and maybe it helps avoid revolving door impeachments.
To me it feels both like a completely natural development and entirely against the spirit and intent of the office.
Which is pretty much the template for America as a whole, really.
So, Trump kinda represents an American attitude towards the Presidency that a sizeable percentage of Americans do believe and value. This is not a viewpoint all Americans hold, or even most Americans. But it exists and it's worth talking about.
And that is the view of the President as Dictator. I mean Dictator in the classic, Roman Republic sense. A person temporarily elevated to supreme authority to deal with crises and address serious issues in a way that conventional authority cannot. It also tends to stray into Dictator in a modern, "Strongman" Fascist sense.
These Americans believe the President should basically be temporary absolute powers, to hand down edicts from on high, create laws, right wrongs, fix broken systems, and be a warrior king.
Look at the way Trump attacks Hillary for being ineffectual as a Senator, asking her why she didn't just do things she wanted to do, as if as a single Senator she had such power. In Trump's view, if she was strong enough, she would have, because that's how he thinks the system should work.
Look at how Trump talks about creating laws (even though the President can't create laws), jailing his political opponents, overturning state laws, revising agencies he would have no power over as President. He doesn't understand how the Presidency actually works; he understands how he thinks it should work, and that's a view he shares with many Americans.
It's why I repeatedly call Trump a literal Fascist. It's not just because his social politics are hideous. It's because his views on what a President is and should be is a Dictatorship. He doesn't want to be President according to the Constitution, he wants to be President according to the imagination of pop culture. He wants to be a Dictator.
And millions of Americans agree. Even if they don't want Trump specifically to be Dictator, they still think of the office of the President this way.
There's definitely something about Presidential systems that inclines people to excessive reverence for the position. I don't think it's unique to America, and I suspect it's fundamentally baked into whole the direct-election-of-head-of-state thing. I don't know if it's inherently a bad thing - personally I find it vaguely distasteful in a small-r republican way, because it smacks of divine appointment and hagiography. But god knows I've never been asked to sit down and come up with the founding rules for a long-lasting democracy, and maybe it helps avoid revolving door impeachments.
I think because I come from a country that doesn't have an elected head of state and has a strong legislative branch as the core of government that presidency is really alien and unsettling to me.
Like, it's fucking appalling to me that Americans as a majority do not care about the mid-term elections. The fact that they're even called mid-term elections, like they're of fundamentally lower priority to the Presidential elections, is so completely fucked up to me I don't know how to really put it into words.
The Congress is so important to American politics, both federal Congress and state Congresses. Yet most Americans do not care about them! They don't think about them until they do something egregious like a government shutdown, and then the story is about how useless Congress is and how they over all seem kind of pointless!
Again, maybe because I come from a country where our President-equivalent (the Governor-General) is a ceremonial position that is appointed and isn't really a focal point of our political system it's just something I can't understand. But god does American politics frighten me.
So, Trump kinda represents an American attitude towards the Presidency that a sizeable percentage of Americans do believe and value. This is not a viewpoint all Americans hold, or even most Americans. But it exists and it's worth talking about.
And that is the view of the President as Dictator. I mean Dictator in the classic, Roman Republic sense. A person temporarily elevated to supreme authority to deal with crises and address serious issues in a way that conventional authority cannot. It also tends to stray into Dictator in a modern, "Strongman" Fascist sense.
These Americans believe the President should basically be temporary absolute powers, to hand down edicts from on high, create laws, right wrongs, fix broken systems, and be a warrior king.
Look at the way Trump attacks Hillary for being ineffectual as a Senator, asking her why she didn't just do things she wanted to do, as if as a single Senator she had such power. In Trump's view, if she was strong enough, she would have, because that's how he thinks the system should work.
Look at how Trump talks about creating laws (even though the President can't create laws), jailing his political opponents, overturning state laws, revising agencies he would have no power over as President. He doesn't understand how the Presidency actually works; he understands how he thinks it should work, and that's a view he shares with many Americans.
It's why I repeatedly call Trump a literal Fascist. It's not just because his social politics are hideous. It's because his views on what a President is and should be is a Dictatorship. He doesn't want to be President according to the Constitution, he wants to be President according to the imagination of pop culture. He wants to be a Dictator.
And millions of Americans agree. Even if they don't want Trump specifically to be Dictator, they still think of the office of the President this way.
There's definitely something about Presidential systems that inclines people to excessive reverence for the position. I don't think it's unique to America, and I suspect it's fundamentally baked into whole the direct-election-of-head-of-state thing. I don't know if it's inherently a bad thing - personally I find it vaguely distasteful in a small-r republican way, because it smacks of divine appointment and hagiography. But god knows I've never been asked to sit down and come up with the founding rules for a long-lasting democracy, and maybe it helps avoid revolving door impeachments.
I think because I come from a country that doesn't have an elected head of state and has a strong legislative branch as the core of government that presidency is really alien and unsettling to me.
Like, it's fucking appalling to me that Americans as a majority do not care about the mid-term elections. The fact that they're even called mid-term elections, like they're of fundamentally lower priority to the Presidential elections, is so completely fucked up to me I don't know how to really put it into words.
The Congress is so important to American politics, both federal Congress and state Congresses. Yet most Americans do not care about them! They don't think about them until they do something egregious like a government shutdown, and then the story is about how useless Congress is and how they over all seem kind of pointless!
Again, maybe because I come from a country where our President-equivalent (the Governor-General) is a ceremonial position that is appointed and isn't really a focal point of our political system it's just something I can't understand. But god does American politics frighten me.
well I mean, I'm in the same boat, I'm not American.
edit: the thing that really freaks me out about the US system is there's no built-in fix for a logjam. You can't do the equivalent of dissolving parliament. It's just ... busted, possibly forever.
So, Trump kinda represents an American attitude towards the Presidency that a sizeable percentage of Americans do believe and value. This is not a viewpoint all Americans hold, or even most Americans. But it exists and it's worth talking about.
And that is the view of the President as Dictator. I mean Dictator in the classic, Roman Republic sense. A person temporarily elevated to supreme authority to deal with crises and address serious issues in a way that conventional authority cannot. It also tends to stray into Dictator in a modern, "Strongman" Fascist sense.
These Americans believe the President should basically be temporary absolute powers, to hand down edicts from on high, create laws, right wrongs, fix broken systems, and be a warrior king.
Look at the way Trump attacks Hillary for being ineffectual as a Senator, asking her why she didn't just do things she wanted to do, as if as a single Senator she had such power. In Trump's view, if she was strong enough, she would have, because that's how he thinks the system should work.
Look at how Trump talks about creating laws (even though the President can't create laws), jailing his political opponents, overturning state laws, revising agencies he would have no power over as President. He doesn't understand how the Presidency actually works; he understands how he thinks it should work, and that's a view he shares with many Americans.
It's why I repeatedly call Trump a literal Fascist. It's not just because his social politics are hideous. It's because his views on what a President is and should be is a Dictatorship. He doesn't want to be President according to the Constitution, he wants to be President according to the imagination of pop culture. He wants to be a Dictator.
And millions of Americans agree. Even if they don't want Trump specifically to be Dictator, they still think of the office of the President this way.
There's definitely something about Presidential systems that inclines people to excessive reverence for the position. I don't think it's unique to America, and I suspect it's fundamentally baked into whole the direct-election-of-head-of-state thing. I don't know if it's inherently a bad thing - personally I find it vaguely distasteful in a small-r republican way, because it smacks of divine appointment and hagiography. But god knows I've never been asked to sit down and come up with the founding rules for a long-lasting democracy, and maybe it helps avoid revolving door impeachments.
I think because I come from a country that doesn't have an elected head of state and has a strong legislative branch as the core of government that presidency is really alien and unsettling to me.
Like, it's fucking appalling to me that Americans as a majority do not care about the mid-term elections. The fact that they're even called mid-term elections, like they're of fundamentally lower priority to the Presidential elections, is so completely fucked up to me I don't know how to really put it into words.
The Congress is so important to American politics, both federal Congress and state Congresses. Yet most Americans do not care about them! They don't think about them until they do something egregious like a government shutdown, and then the story is about how useless Congress is and how they over all seem kind of pointless!
Again, maybe because I come from a country where our President-equivalent (the Governor-General) is a ceremonial position that is appointed and isn't really a focal point of our political system it's just something I can't understand. But god does American politics frighten me.
I think a big part of it is because we each only really elect three of those people, so our contributions feel kind of like a drop in the bucket. There's probably also a bit of tribalism working against us in that most people figure whichever candidate is fine because either way it's our candidate and they'll be after our interests. People are really bad at big-picture thinking, turns out.
So, Trump kinda represents an American attitude towards the Presidency that a sizeable percentage of Americans do believe and value. This is not a viewpoint all Americans hold, or even most Americans. But it exists and it's worth talking about.
And that is the view of the President as Dictator. I mean Dictator in the classic, Roman Republic sense. A person temporarily elevated to supreme authority to deal with crises and address serious issues in a way that conventional authority cannot. It also tends to stray into Dictator in a modern, "Strongman" Fascist sense.
These Americans believe the President should basically be temporary absolute powers, to hand down edicts from on high, create laws, right wrongs, fix broken systems, and be a warrior king.
Look at the way Trump attacks Hillary for being ineffectual as a Senator, asking her why she didn't just do things she wanted to do, as if as a single Senator she had such power. In Trump's view, if she was strong enough, she would have, because that's how he thinks the system should work.
Look at how Trump talks about creating laws (even though the President can't create laws), jailing his political opponents, overturning state laws, revising agencies he would have no power over as President. He doesn't understand how the Presidency actually works; he understands how he thinks it should work, and that's a view he shares with many Americans.
It's why I repeatedly call Trump a literal Fascist. It's not just because his social politics are hideous. It's because his views on what a President is and should be is a Dictatorship. He doesn't want to be President according to the Constitution, he wants to be President according to the imagination of pop culture. He wants to be a Dictator.
And millions of Americans agree. Even if they don't want Trump specifically to be Dictator, they still think of the office of the President this way.
There's definitely something about Presidential systems that inclines people to excessive reverence for the position. I don't think it's unique to America, and I suspect it's fundamentally baked into whole the direct-election-of-head-of-state thing. I don't know if it's inherently a bad thing - personally I find it vaguely distasteful in a small-r republican way, because it smacks of divine appointment and hagiography. But god knows I've never been asked to sit down and come up with the founding rules for a long-lasting democracy, and maybe it helps avoid revolving door impeachments.
I think because I come from a country that doesn't have an elected head of state and has a strong legislative branch as the core of government that presidency is really alien and unsettling to me.
Like, it's fucking appalling to me that Americans as a majority do not care about the mid-term elections. The fact that they're even called mid-term elections, like they're of fundamentally lower priority to the Presidential elections, is so completely fucked up to me I don't know how to really put it into words.
The Congress is so important to American politics, both federal Congress and state Congresses. Yet most Americans do not care about them! They don't think about them until they do something egregious like a government shutdown, and then the story is about how useless Congress is and how they over all seem kind of pointless!
Again, maybe because I come from a country where our President-equivalent (the Governor-General) is a ceremonial position that is appointed and isn't really a focal point of our political system it's just something I can't understand. But god does American politics frighten me.
I think a big part of it is because we each only really elect three of those people, so our contributions feel kind of like a drop in the bucket. There's probably also a bit of tribalism working against us in that most people figure whichever candidate is fine because either way it's our candidate and they'll be after our interests. People are really bad at big-picture thinking, turns out.
But it doesn't work this way in countries that don't emphasize their executive like that! And I don't think people in those countries are somehow more predisposed to big-picture thinking.
Like, to use my own country (Canada) as an example, we don't elect the Governor General. We elect our Parliament, and the the leader of the Governing Party is the Prime Minister. So we don't even really elect the Prime Minister, unless you happen to live in that specific person's riding (congressional district equivalent). Some Canadians vote based on the potential Prime Minister candidate, like in our most recent federal election many Canadians voted Liberal purely because they liked Justin Trudeau. But the majority of Canadians vote based on party lines. Liberal voters vote Liberal, Conservative voters vote Conservative, NDP voters vote NDP, Green voters refuse to vaccinate their children so they die of polio.
So in Canada you vote for one person every four years and ultimately have zero say in who is Prime Minister or who is Governor General. Nonetheless we still have pretty good voter turnout and people still give a shit about the issues that matter to them and vote accordingly. I don't generally hear a lot of Canadians complain their vote doesn't count unless they genuinely feel like none of the major political parties represent them, which is a real issue and does discourage some voters.
You just need a preferential voting system and a ludicrous array of small single-issue parties, like Australia! And look how well we're doing with our leadership!
well I mean, I'm in the same boat, I'm not American.
edit: the thing that really freaks me out about the US system is there's no built-in fix for a logjam. You can't do the equivalent of dissolving parliament. It's just ... busted, possibly forever.
this is a really good point. the U.S. system is based on checks and balances. the President against the Congress against the Judiciary, and combinations of these. the Fed against the States and vice versa. the U.S. founders intentionally set things this way to avoid a tyrannical central ruler while still benefiting from the collective power of all of the States.
that might have been great for a system founded on communications limited by the speed of a horse, or weapons that did not have the ability to destroy whole cities, or a population where the people who had an actual voice were all of one gender and one skin tone. the founders obviously could not foresee (or couldn't imagine letting) all of these things changing. the basic assumption was: these governmental bodies will all have to reach compromise, and they will reach compromises because how could reasonable white landowning men not compromise?
i don't think the founders even considered the notion that U.S. socioeconomics and politics would change so much that compromise has become nearly impossible.
i'm of the opinion that we in the U.S. need to be more flexible about how we interpret the Constitution to match the age, or we need a new fundamental governance document that addresses things as they are now.
I mean preferential voting is objectively superior to first-past-the-post. It just is. That doesn't fix having a bunch of shitheads in your political parties or whatever but I mean, first-past-the-post is bad. Canada has it, the US has it, it's fucking bad and we need to get rid of it. It's not super hard for Canada to do because we have at least 3 major parties everywhere in the country, in the US it's almost impossible at this point because they're so polarized.
It was a real good speech. It's nice to hear life lines in a speech. [Paraphrased] He referenced Casablanca and how it's like the GOP showed up and said "There's gamblin' here?!" and then said "young people may not get that reference... Casablanca. Good move, you should watch it." People laughed, not at or meanly but genuinely, during a political speech!
Maddow is showing the Trump speech that was going on at the same time and it's all hate.
I mean preferential voting is objectively superior to first-past-the-post. It just is. That doesn't fix having a bunch of shitheads in your political parties or whatever but I mean, first-past-the-post is bad. Canada has it, the US has it, it's fucking bad and we need to get rid of it. It's not super hard for Canada to do because we have at least 3 major parties everywhere in the country, in the US it's almost impossible at this point because they're so polarized.
Of all the things that rile me up about Australian politics, I've never been at odds with our democratic system. Above-the-line preferencing and the concomitant inter-party dealings are something I wouldn't mind getting rid of, just because it makes it easier to lock out rising powers like the Greens, but even those can be significantly mitigated by an informed electorate.
The average australian voter, however, can piss right off.
well I mean, I'm in the same boat, I'm not American.
edit: the thing that really freaks me out about the US system is there's no built-in fix for a logjam. You can't do the equivalent of dissolving parliament. It's just ... busted, possibly forever.
this is a really good point. the U.S. system is based on checks and balances. the President against the Congress against the Judiciary, and combinations of these. the Fed against the States and vice versa. the U.S. founders intentionally set things this way to avoid a tyrannical central ruler while still benefiting from the collective power of all of the States.
that might have been great for a system founded on communications limited by the speed of a horse, or weapons that did not have the ability to destroy whole cities, or a population where the people who had an actual voice were all of one gender and one skin tone. the founders obviously could not foresee (or couldn't imagine letting) all of these things changing. the basic assumption was: these governmental bodies will all have to reach compromise, and they will reach compromises because how could reasonable white landowning men not compromise?
i don't think the founders even considered the notion that U.S. socioeconomics and politics would change so much that compromise has become nearly impossible.
i'm of the opinion that we in the U.S. need to be more flexible about how we interpret the Constitution to match the age, or we need a new fundamental governance document that addresses things as they are now.
The problem with the checks and balances triangle is that all it takes is a single critical hit from the Supreme Court and you permanently lose the President you've been leveling.
well I mean, I'm in the same boat, I'm not American.
edit: the thing that really freaks me out about the US system is there's no built-in fix for a logjam. You can't do the equivalent of dissolving parliament. It's just ... busted, possibly forever.
this is a really good point. the U.S. system is based on checks and balances. the President against the Congress against the Judiciary, and combinations of these. the Fed against the States and vice versa. the U.S. founders intentionally set things this way to avoid a tyrannical central ruler while still benefiting from the collective power of all of the States.
that might have been great for a system founded on communications limited by the speed of a horse, or weapons that did not have the ability to destroy whole cities, or a population where the people who had an actual voice were all of one gender and one skin tone. the founders obviously could not foresee (or couldn't imagine letting) all of these things changing. the basic assumption was: these governmental bodies will all have to reach compromise, and they will reach compromises because how could reasonable white landowning men not compromise?
i don't think the founders even considered the notion that U.S. socioeconomics and politics would change so much that compromise has become nearly impossible.
i'm of the opinion that we in the U.S. need to be more flexible about how we interpret the Constitution to match the age, or we need a new fundamental governance document that addresses things as they are now.
The problem with the checks and balances triangle is that all it takes is a single critical hit from the Supreme Court and you permanently lose the President you've been leveling.
well obviously we need a "Phoenix Down" amendment to address that
I can't bear to post it here but there's a photo of a woman at a Trump rally with a handmade shirt that reads "Trump can grab my pussy"
just
...
I don't know if I should feel bad for her, or what
There will always be people, always, who have the mindset of "when you prick your finger, I do not bleed."
They refuse to accept that what happens to other people that are similar to them affects them, that they in any way represent or are associated with those people. They will sometimes go out of their way to make a show of how unlike they are from those people.
"Hullo boys, I'm not like those other girls!"
etc.
Don't feel sorry for these people. They have made a conscious choice to be this way. Even if a lifetime of abuse or neglect or hardship has put them in a position where they think they can lift themselves up by putting a boot on someone else's neck, that's still a choice they're actively making.
+3
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Werewolf2000adSuckers, I know exactly what went wrong.Registered Userregular
I don't know, I can see a lot of reasons why a woman who has children with a famously abusive man would maybe not find it super easy to check out of that marriage
I guess she's not a woman in the sense of "deserving of sympathy when married to a brute" any more, because she's kind of Republican.
I don't know, I can see a lot of reasons why a woman who has children with a famously abusive man would maybe not find it super easy to check out of that marriage
I guess she's not a woman in the sense of "deserving of sympathy when married to a brute" any more, because she's kind of Republican.
Woof, I read this after Pony's comment about Michelle Obama and a brief second of "oh god what did I miss?"
So, Trump kinda represents an American attitude towards the Presidency that a sizeable percentage of Americans do believe and value. This is not a viewpoint all Americans hold, or even most Americans. But it exists and it's worth talking about.
And that is the view of the President as Dictator. I mean Dictator in the classic, Roman Republic sense. A person temporarily elevated to supreme authority to deal with crises and address serious issues in a way that conventional authority cannot. It also tends to stray into Dictator in a modern, "Strongman" Fascist sense.
These Americans believe the President should basically be temporary absolute powers, to hand down edicts from on high, create laws, right wrongs, fix broken systems, and be a warrior king.
Look at the way Trump attacks Hillary for being ineffectual as a Senator, asking her why she didn't just do things she wanted to do, as if as a single Senator she had such power. In Trump's view, if she was strong enough, she would have, because that's how he thinks the system should work.
Look at how Trump talks about creating laws (even though the President can't create laws), jailing his political opponents, overturning state laws, revising agencies he would have no power over as President. He doesn't understand how the Presidency actually works; he understands how he thinks it should work, and that's a view he shares with many Americans.
It's why I repeatedly call Trump a literal Fascist. It's not just because his social politics are hideous. It's because his views on what a President is and should be is a Dictatorship. He doesn't want to be President according to the Constitution, he wants to be President according to the imagination of pop culture. He wants to be a Dictator.
And millions of Americans agree. Even if they don't want Trump specifically to be Dictator, they still think of the office of the President this way.
There's definitely something about Presidential systems that inclines people to excessive reverence for the position. I don't think it's unique to America, and I suspect it's fundamentally baked into whole the direct-election-of-head-of-state thing. I don't know if it's inherently a bad thing - personally I find it vaguely distasteful in a small-r republican way, because it smacks of divine appointment and hagiography. But god knows I've never been asked to sit down and come up with the founding rules for a long-lasting democracy, and maybe it helps avoid revolving door impeachments.
I think because I come from a country that doesn't have an elected head of state and has a strong legislative branch as the core of government that presidency is really alien and unsettling to me.
Like, it's fucking appalling to me that Americans as a majority do not care about the mid-term elections. The fact that they're even called mid-term elections, like they're of fundamentally lower priority to the Presidential elections, is so completely fucked up to me I don't know how to really put it into words.
The Congress is so important to American politics, both federal Congress and state Congresses. Yet most Americans do not care about them! They don't think about them until they do something egregious like a government shutdown, and then the story is about how useless Congress is and how they over all seem kind of pointless!
Again, maybe because I come from a country where our President-equivalent (the Governor-General) is a ceremonial position that is appointed and isn't really a focal point of our political system it's just something I can't understand. But god does American politics frighten me.
well I mean, I'm in the same boat, I'm not American.
edit: the thing that really freaks me out about the US system is there's no built-in fix for a logjam. You can't do the equivalent of dissolving parliament. It's just ... busted, possibly forever.
This right here is a huge problem we have in the U.S. at the moment, I think. And I have no idea how it could realistically be fixed.
With all the unprecedented levels of obstruction and gridlock we've seen recently, we're basically adopting what is essentially parliamentary rule but with a presidential system that doesn't have the means to make that work.
Kevin Drum at Mother Jones wrote about this a few years ago:
The key issue here is party discipline. In the past, the Republican and Democratic parties had fairly weak discipline. It was common for Republicans and Democrats to defect to the other side on particular votes, and this kind of horse-trading allowed us to muddle along fairly well even when Congress and the president were of different parties.
Today, that's changed. Like a parliamentary system, we have pretty tight party discipline with virtually no defections. That works fine if you actually have a parliamentary system, where the majority party always has the power to pass laws and implement its platform. And the existence of no-confidence votes provides an escape valve that allows early elections if the government fails in some spectacular way or public opinion changes dramatically.
But strict party discipline doesn't work so well in a presidential system like ours. There's no formal mechanism to force agreement between a Congress and a president of opposite parties, so when traditional horse-trading disappears you have a recipe for gridlock. Nor is there an equivalent of a no-confidence vote. If the government is gridlocked, you're out of luck until the next scheduled election.
Parliamentary systems with strict party discipline work fine because the rules are set up to accommodate that. Presidential systems with weak party discipline can also work fine because informal horse-trading between the parties usually allows everyone to cobble together a working compromise of some kind. But a presidential system with parliamentary-style strict party discipline? Not so good. This is why it's rare for presidential systems to endure.
Ours is the exception, having endured for over two centuries. But the development of strict party discipline over the past couple of decades has put us in a dangerous position. One way or another, governments have to work. Right now, ours doesn't, and something has to give. But what?
Michelle Obama after the DNC said three things are certain. Death, taxes, and that she'll never run for the presidency.
I think she just wants to keep doing her girls education initiative and get the heck out of the spotlight. I'd love it if she decided to run for the senate in a while, and maybe she'd change her mind about potentially running for president later, but I take her at her word.
Posts
or, more generally, what kind of damages she would claim
they remind people that she's connected to trump
It caused her to respond to it and I know I think less of her after seeing the response.
Oh he makes all the gadgets Bond uses
PSN- AHermano
This will be here until I receive an apology or Weedlordvegeta get any consequences for being a bully
She is not trapped with Donald Trump. She is complicit in his misogynistic racist hatemongering. And if I never hear her name again I will feel better off
"You're making my G rock hard!"
This is true. What's frightening about this viewpoint is that Trump isn't even good at running a business. Like even if emotionally a person just wants "The Boss", they want a hard-ass, no-nonsense shark of a CEO to be their President/Dictator, Trump sucks at it.
He's not Elon Musk, who by all accounts is kind of a fucking asshole but at least is making money had over fist legally and is pushing the boundaries of science and shit. He's not even Steve Jobs, who again was a shitty person and arguably an intellectual thief but again, very financially successful and brought incredible technology to the world.
Trump is a con-artist who has helped create luxury real estate of dubious quality, casinos of poor value (that actually lost money), sham universities, and other shoddy products and scams. He's not even good at it.
I think Trump scratches at a specific American emotional itch. Beyond the hateful deplorables who like him because he embodies their racism or sexism or religious bigotry or whatever, he also embodies the idiotic America cultural viewpoint that there's no such thing as a poor American, just a temporarily inconvenienced billionaire American who hasn't had things go their way yet. That any fucking idiot can be a "billionaire" if they got enough moxy and shit. For people who believe in a particularly toxic and self-destructive form of the American Dream, Trump is evidence.
There's definitely something about Presidential systems that inclines people to excessive reverence for the position. I don't think it's unique to America, and I suspect it's fundamentally baked into whole the direct-election-of-head-of-state thing. I don't know if it's inherently a bad thing - personally I find it vaguely distasteful in a small-r republican way, because it smacks of divine appointment and hagiography. But god knows I've never been asked to sit down and come up with the founding rules for a long-lasting democracy, and maybe it helps avoid revolving door impeachments.
it's weird since he's the son of a billionaire and was loaned money, given positions and granted influence by his father
like he's the furthest thing from pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and becoming a self-made man
To me it feels both like a completely natural development and entirely against the spirit and intent of the office.
Which is pretty much the template for America as a whole, really.
I think because I come from a country that doesn't have an elected head of state and has a strong legislative branch as the core of government that presidency is really alien and unsettling to me.
Like, it's fucking appalling to me that Americans as a majority do not care about the mid-term elections. The fact that they're even called mid-term elections, like they're of fundamentally lower priority to the Presidential elections, is so completely fucked up to me I don't know how to really put it into words.
The Congress is so important to American politics, both federal Congress and state Congresses. Yet most Americans do not care about them! They don't think about them until they do something egregious like a government shutdown, and then the story is about how useless Congress is and how they over all seem kind of pointless!
Again, maybe because I come from a country where our President-equivalent (the Governor-General) is a ceremonial position that is appointed and isn't really a focal point of our political system it's just something I can't understand. But god does American politics frighten me.
well I mean, I'm in the same boat, I'm not American.
edit: the thing that really freaks me out about the US system is there's no built-in fix for a logjam. You can't do the equivalent of dissolving parliament. It's just ... busted, possibly forever.
I think a big part of it is because we each only really elect three of those people, so our contributions feel kind of like a drop in the bucket. There's probably also a bit of tribalism working against us in that most people figure whichever candidate is fine because either way it's our candidate and they'll be after our interests. People are really bad at big-picture thinking, turns out.
FGOTUS sounds like some sort of athlete's foot medication or something.
But it doesn't work this way in countries that don't emphasize their executive like that! And I don't think people in those countries are somehow more predisposed to big-picture thinking.
Like, to use my own country (Canada) as an example, we don't elect the Governor General. We elect our Parliament, and the the leader of the Governing Party is the Prime Minister. So we don't even really elect the Prime Minister, unless you happen to live in that specific person's riding (congressional district equivalent). Some Canadians vote based on the potential Prime Minister candidate, like in our most recent federal election many Canadians voted Liberal purely because they liked Justin Trudeau. But the majority of Canadians vote based on party lines. Liberal voters vote Liberal, Conservative voters vote Conservative, NDP voters vote NDP, Green voters refuse to vaccinate their children so they die of polio.
So in Canada you vote for one person every four years and ultimately have zero say in who is Prime Minister or who is Governor General. Nonetheless we still have pretty good voter turnout and people still give a shit about the issues that matter to them and vote accordingly. I don't generally hear a lot of Canadians complain their vote doesn't count unless they genuinely feel like none of the major political parties represent them, which is a real issue and does discourage some voters.
... gonna cry now.
this is a really good point. the U.S. system is based on checks and balances. the President against the Congress against the Judiciary, and combinations of these. the Fed against the States and vice versa. the U.S. founders intentionally set things this way to avoid a tyrannical central ruler while still benefiting from the collective power of all of the States.
that might have been great for a system founded on communications limited by the speed of a horse, or weapons that did not have the ability to destroy whole cities, or a population where the people who had an actual voice were all of one gender and one skin tone. the founders obviously could not foresee (or couldn't imagine letting) all of these things changing. the basic assumption was: these governmental bodies will all have to reach compromise, and they will reach compromises because how could reasonable white landowning men not compromise?
i don't think the founders even considered the notion that U.S. socioeconomics and politics would change so much that compromise has become nearly impossible.
i'm of the opinion that we in the U.S. need to be more flexible about how we interpret the Constitution to match the age, or we need a new fundamental governance document that addresses things as they are now.
steam | Dokkan: 868846562
Steam
Maddow is showing the Trump speech that was going on at the same time and it's all hate.
Thanks Obama.
Of all the things that rile me up about Australian politics, I've never been at odds with our democratic system. Above-the-line preferencing and the concomitant inter-party dealings are something I wouldn't mind getting rid of, just because it makes it easier to lock out rising powers like the Greens, but even those can be significantly mitigated by an informed electorate.
The average australian voter, however, can piss right off.
welp, guess i'm a trump voter now
http://www.audioentropy.com/
The problem with the checks and balances triangle is that all it takes is a single critical hit from the Supreme Court and you permanently lose the President you've been leveling.
well obviously we need a "Phoenix Down" amendment to address that
steam | Dokkan: 868846562
just
...
I don't know if I should feel bad for her, or what
There will always be people, always, who have the mindset of "when you prick your finger, I do not bleed."
They refuse to accept that what happens to other people that are similar to them affects them, that they in any way represent or are associated with those people. They will sometimes go out of their way to make a show of how unlike they are from those people.
"Hullo boys, I'm not like those other girls!"
etc.
Don't feel sorry for these people. They have made a conscious choice to be this way. Even if a lifetime of abuse or neglect or hardship has put them in a position where they think they can lift themselves up by putting a boot on someone else's neck, that's still a choice they're actively making.
(In the name of God, do NOT listen to this in public)
EVERYBODY WANTS TO SIT IN THE BIG CHAIR, MEG!
I guess she's not a woman in the sense of "deserving of sympathy when married to a brute" any more, because she's kind of Republican.
Woof, I read this after Pony's comment about Michelle Obama and a brief second of "oh god what did I miss?"
This right here is a huge problem we have in the U.S. at the moment, I think. And I have no idea how it could realistically be fixed.
With all the unprecedented levels of obstruction and gridlock we've seen recently, we're basically adopting what is essentially parliamentary rule but with a presidential system that doesn't have the means to make that work.
Kevin Drum at Mother Jones wrote about this a few years ago:
I think she just wants to keep doing her girls education initiative and get the heck out of the spotlight. I'd love it if she decided to run for the senate in a while, and maybe she'd change her mind about potentially running for president later, but I take her at her word.
In the year of our lord 2016, people are still taking pictures of their monitors with their cell phones
Uh-oh I accidentally deleted my signature. Uh-oh!!