Trump's Second Term

Democracy - successful democracy - is utterly dependant on enough voters taking the time to properly inform themselves about the people and policies they are voting for. For whatever reason, in more and more countries in the world, voters are choosing not to do that work, but to instead happily and mindlessly swallow whichever lies most appeal to their prejudices. They are thereby allowing themselves to be manipulated into electing fascists. That's when democracy fails.

mumblethrax said:
This is an odd claim, and I think an obviously false one. Unarmed resistance to (for example) lawless actions by the Trump administration would be perfectly justifiable and would not entail a rejection of democracy.

It matters that he was elected to the position of president, and not absolute monarch, even if he would prefer to elide the distinction.
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What matters more is whether the voters who democratically elected him wanted him to act as a traditional president or as an absolute monarch. So far I see little evidence that they have any problem with his actions.
 
Tero said:
Trump: take out the congressman!
www.threads.com

The Lincoln Project (@lincolnproject.us) on Threads

So Rep. Massie stands up for Epstein victims, and Trump immediately goes live on the air to say he's an "insurgent" who should be “taken out”. What on earth is in those files?
www.threads.com www.threads.com
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And by "taken out" you mean...what, exactly, Donald? Taken out of context? Taken out to dinner? Hmmm?
 
mumblethrax said:
It really seems like a US administration carrying out the extrajudicial killing of 11 people in a boat, claiming they were drug dealing gang members while producing no evidence that this was the case, and now scrambling to come up with a retrospective legal justification ought to be a bigger story.
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It matters naught if nobody holds the perpetrators to account.
 
a_unique_person said:
If there's 11 people on an open boat that size isn't it more likely they were people smugglers.
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Post #25581
Norman Alexander said:
Probably not a narco boat. The cartels would not waste resources deploying 11 people on one narco shipment. One or two maybe, but not 11.

More likely it was a fishing boat doing a bit of people smuggling, if it was doing anything illegal at all.
By the way, attacking and sinking an unarmed ship in open waters has a definition: piracy. The Trump administration has the US navy doing piracy. Awesome. I bet the Navy command are fine with that too.
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mumblethrax said:
It really seems like a US administration carrying out the extrajudicial killing of 11 people in a boat, claiming they were drug dealing gang members while producing no evidence that this was the case, and now scrambling to come up with a retrospective legal justification ought to be a bigger story.
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Do we know who did the attack? There seems an assumption it was the US navy, but i think the CIA have armed drones capable of such an attack? The CIA may be more willing to carry out criminal acts than the navy..
 
Andy_Ross said:
He didn't want to go to the party anyway!
Trump on Russia, North Korea, and China: “I thought it was a beautiful ceremony. I thought it was very, very impressive, but I understood the reason they were doing it, and they were hoping I was watching, and I was watching…I watched the speech last night. President Xi is a friend of mine, but I thought that the United States should have been mentioned last night during that speech because we helped China.”


https://twitter.com/x/status/1963269736998850618
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This stuff about helping China, shedding blood for China etc, am I misremembering my history or wasn't it Chang Kai Shek's nationalist forces the US allied with not Mao Tse Tung's communist forces?

Not sure why China would be grateful for that.
 
I
Andy_Ross said:
He didn't want to go to the party anyway!
Trump on Russia, North Korea, and China: “I thought it was a beautiful ceremony. I thought it was very, very impressive, but I understood the reason they were doing it, and they were hoping I was watching, and I was watching…I watched the speech last night. President Xi is a friend of mine, but I thought that the United States should have been mentioned last night during that speech because we helped China.”


https://twitter.com/x/status/1963269736998850618
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I see the usual Trump deadpan stare, no not an expression Trump has it's those around him when he starts to speak, you know they are thinking "WTF" but have schooled themselves to not show any reaction
 
Pixel42 said:
That's when democracy fails.
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Not really. Democracy fails when democratic norms are rejected. That can be surprisingly independent of how well informed the electorate is. I don't think the failure of the Weimar republic was down to Germans suddenly becoming less informed. Modern democracy has been around for a couple of centuries now, and people in the 19th century weren't particularly better at this than we are today. They were certainly less educated.

But none of this really has much to do with the price of tea in China. We weren't talking about how democracy fails, but about whether resistance to that failure is itself undemocratic.

What matters more is whether the voters who democratically elected him wanted him to act as a traditional president or as an absolute monarch.
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If the people who voted for him (it's worth the quibble that he was not, in fact, democratically elected, because we don't have democratic presidential elections in the US) want a dictator, then they are rejecting democracy, not the people who resist this development. Support for democracy does not imply support for all democratic outcomes, particularly a democratic outcome that precludes the possibility of democratic rule. It's incoherent to call a dictatorship a democracy, no matter how the dictator initially gained power.

So far I see little evidence that they have any problem with his actions.
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Trump's approval rating throughout August has hovered around 40%. On specific policy decisions there is widespread disapproval. I see plenty of reason to believe that voters have some problems with his actions, and if you don't see that evidence, I'd suggest it's because you aren't looking for it.

There should, of course, be a great deal more resistance to all of this.
 
Freedom of speech Donald, Irony much?

A US federal court has overturned billions in funding cuts by President Donald Trump's administration to Harvard University.

Judge Allison Burroughs ruled the government violated the Ivy League college's free speech rights when it revoked around $2bn (£1.5bn) in research grants.

www.bbc.co.uk

Harvard: Judge overturns Trump's research funding cuts at school

A court rules the Ivy League college's free speech rights were violated, but the White House vows to appeal.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk
 
I don't think because we wanted to is actual legal authority.

Q: On the Venezuela vessel strike, what legal authority were you guys working under?

JD VANCE: The legal authority is there are people who are bringing -- literal terrorists -- who are bringing deadly drugs into our country

https://twitter.com/x/status/1963333620732477862
 
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