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But this isn’t
Yeah but also the reliance on 'norms' is part of the problem.
We relied on the 'norm' of R v W when no law was on the books stating otherwise.
We're relying on the 'norm' of a 2 term president when no law is on the books stating otherwise.
We need to actually codify norms into something enforceable if we want them to have real meaning. Otherwise they are just opinions.
when no law is on the books stating otherwise
There actually is one (even a constitutional amendment). It was introduced after Franklin D Roosevelt's served a third and a fourth term.
That's part of what makes Trump's talk of a 3rd term both ridiculous and terrifying. It would violate the Constitution, so a radical change to our country would have to happen for that to happen. All of our "inalienable rights" are guaranteed by the Constitution, so if they throw it away for a 3rd Trump term, they can throw it away for anything else they want. Want to go back to only white men who own land voting? It's the Constitution blocking that. Making treason a crime? The Constitution. Once they break that, we're hosed.
They're already throwing out the Constitution. Fourteenth amendment says he's ineligible to be president because of the insurrection.
That should have been a slam dunk impeachment conviction. That the discussion even gets to the 14th makes me weep for the country I thought I grew up in.
This isn’t new at all, so if anything ignoring the 22nd is just furthering the current trajectory of decline imo. What happened to our “inalienable right” to privacy, supposedly guaranteed by the 4th amendment, after 9/11 and the ensuing bipartisan surveillance bill known as the Patriot Act?
It would violate the Constitution
Hardly the first time we've done that in this country.
From a game theory perspective, it is impossible to create a system that is immune to bad faith actors. They will always find cracks to squeeze through. The people within the system have to proactively police against bad faith actors.
You can make a system thats immune- you just have to make they pay offs force a better result than being self interested. The mafia broke the prisoners dilemma by killing everyone that confessed - we should apply the same and execute Trump for attempting to breach the constitution for his own self interest. See how many people try again.
The mafia is not famous for being able to provide a stable environment which is safe for the people within it who follow the rules and can scale up to hundreds of millions of people while keeping everything relatively safe and reasonable
“We'll just kill everyone who threatens us” is a tempting solution for a government that is under threat, but the historical examples of that strategy playing out well for anyone even over the short term are few and far between, even when it seemed pretty justified at the time
You're right they aren't, I was using it as an example. I'm not fully versed in UCMJ (think thats the right one) but as ex commander in chief Trump is a part of the armed forces, and the penalty for Treason is execution. Not asking a new law to come out, only a reminder that we have laws, and no one is above them.
Then the bad faith actors will just exploit that system to kill people they want dead.
That's true. Relying on norms is a problem.
But, I think it's still worth pointing out that there has been a wild shift.
Maybe there have never been good Republicans. Maybe. That's irrelevant.
Consider the man who took down McCarthy: a republican crushing a "fellow" republican. There existed a point, where the man who asked "Have you no decency?" Was "on the same team".
There is nuance to the conversation. I don't ask a republican to be ashamed for identifying as a republican. I only ask them to be ashamed of the state of the Republican party. Don't tell people you're the party of Lincoln. BE the party of Lincoln.
"How Democracies Die" goes into quite a bit of detail about this -- basically, it is impossible to run a system purely by making the right laws, because the system is made of people. The laws can say whatever you want. If the people start to betray them, the system will fold.
In practice (so says the book) every single democratic government depends on a structure of norms, and violation of norms and laws goes hand in hand to form the eventual collapse into fascism when it happens.
They also say that resistance from the establishment conservatives (that the fascists are trying to invade and co-opt from within) is generally the key factor that can prevent a fascist takeover. Which is pretty fuckin worrying when you look at the modern Republicans.
resistance from the establishment conservatives (that the fascists are trying to invade and co-opt from within) is generally the key factor that can prevent a fascist takeover.
That's a very idealist understanding of fascism, I'm not sure your book is worth anything if the author thinks fascism just a thing that happens and can be stopped by individuals instead of examining the system that creates the conditions for fascism.
Learning from people even if they don’t agree with all of your existing conclusions, or want to present well researched facts and conclusions that are outside the scope of your favorite model and your favorite facts to present, is a good thing, not a bad thing.
Case in point: I am genuinely curious, what would you say is the way to structure a society so that it won’t have within it the natural ingredients for collapsing into fascism over time? If you’re going to say (I assume) that capitalism will inevitably turn into fascism as time goes by?
(The book is obviously more complete and well researched than my one sentence summary alone, since it draws from 10-20 countries and the exact details of how fascism arose or didn’t in each one, and what might be the factors that were instrumental in why it happened the way it did in each. That factual analysis and examination of history to see how reality tends to play out I think is pretty invaluable to being able to understand. That said, your broader point, that maybe we shouldn’t get too deep into the nuts and bolts of how things play out once they reach the crisis point without looking firmly at the factors that brought the countries to the crisis point in the first place, I actually think is a really good point.)
Interesting.
Makes me kinda sad that there is a democrat mentality that there CAN'T be a good Republican. It politically disincentivises any republican to be that voice.
Which is probably why the Russian interference playbook is to reinforce the notion that there can not be a good Republican (or democrat).
Tell me one republican policy that is good. No more weapons for Ukraine doesn't count because they only think they need those weapons to use on Mexico, Iran, and China.
If the end result of every policy a politician supports is bad, how can they be a good politician?
How nice of the guy who sang about bombing Iran to snatch the mic away from a crazy person that would've made him look bad if he had agreed. This was back when republicans had to keep up appearances of decorum. His policies were still along the same lines as trump (and as bush before him).
John McCain never saw a war that he didn't want Americans fighting and dying in.
I'm sorry, how many bombers did you personally stop from bombing children in Laos?
None? Oh, you didn't even take an aircraft carrier out of commission during the vietnam war?
Edit: In case somebody didn't get the joke, Mccaine was a terrible pilot who crashed 2 planes and was involved in an incident that took a carrier out of commission and killed almost 200 soldier.
There's not a lot of people who directly did as much to slow the American war machine as Mccaine's incompetence.
a crazy person that would’ve made him look bad if he had agreed
The bitter truth was that McCain's political instincts sucked. He should have doubled down and gone with the crazy, rather than trying to play at respectability politics and wait to sabotage Obamacare from the cloak room of the Senate. His base didn't want to hear about how Obama's plan was a moderate reform to shore up a broken private system. They wanted to hear that the scary black man was going to kill whitey.
His policies were still along the same lines as trump (and as bush before him).
McCain took a full 180 on a litany of policies - climate change, health care, immigration, balancing the budget - the moment Obama stepped into the White House. But that's SOP for "moderate" Republican congressmen. Spend 20 years going to Think Tanks, agreeing with everyone, and saying you're going to deliver reform. Then torch a mountain of legislation because your rival hurt your feelings when he didn't let you win.
McCain
He also gave us Palin, the precursor of brain dead politicians.
Ever heard of Michelle Bachmann? Newt Gingrich? Mike Huckabee?
Palin wasn't any kind of precursor. She was right in the center of the pack.
Im a fairly progressive person.
When he ran I was totally going to vote for him.
Then he chose Palin as his VP. Not because she's a woman. I thought that was dope. It was when she spoke. Bridge to nowhere bs totally ruined him.
I just want as time where election results were respected and transfer of power came without violence.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/19/trump-campaign-election-monitoring-00153217
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-rnc-vote-monitor-election-integrity-rcna148557
They will delay certification of results where they can. They will do everything to steal this election.
In that election I actually liked/wanted McCain, and this was one of the highlights for me (looking back, rose-tinted I'm sure).
It showed that McCain was still an honest person (comparatively), and had integrity/ethics.
Me too. Then he absolutely lost me after Palin. What an idiot of a person. She can see Russia from her house?!?!
While she was the alpha version of Bobert/Green and dumb as hell, she never said that. It was the SNL bit that did and many of us remember her saying it, but she didn't.
TBF, her actual phrasing wasn't any better.
The question that sparked all this was essentially "What's your foreign policy experience?"
Her answer was basically "Alaska is close to Russia!"
TIL. She was still dumb as hell. I think my point was that McCain VP pick rubbed people the wrong way.
McCain is almost single-handedly responsible for helping birth the tea party in that election. He made an alliance with the growing far right (still without the official name “the tea psrty” at that point in time, but undoubtedly connected) to win the election, and they grew in power since then. Yeah, a big part of their rise was Obama being Black. But another huge piece to that puzzle was McCain making Palin his running mate.
All true, hence my "at the time" comments! Hell, I voted for Bush so my views and world-sense have come a long way since then.
You're not alone. I voted for Bush for his second term and McCain against Obama. By Romney I was a straight ticket blue voter.
I liked McCain as well, until he picked Palin. On that day I changed my party affiliation from R to I because I knew there was no room under the big tent for a person like me.
Why do you need a party affiliation? Why not just vote as you see fit at the time of voting (i know I'm the weird one but i still don't understand this after 40 years)
The biggest reason for most people is for closed primaries, which vary from state to state. During a closed primary or caucus, only voters registered with that party can take part and vote.
Oh i see. I dont have that here. Thanks. But also that seems weirdly invasive