US authoritarianism

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orathaic
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Re: US authoritarianism

#41 Post by orathaic » Sat Nov 21, 2020 9:22 pm

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the problem isn't Trump. Maybe authoritarianism requires a big group of submissive people who just want to be told what to do (doesn't sound very much like the freedom loving Americans, but bear with me).

The mass of Trump supporters demonstrate the kind of sycophantic devotion, but the Republican party has become a vechile for undermining democracy ( ot just recently) and a threat to the status quo in the US.

Nice article about Repuicans here: https://theintercept.com/2020/11/13/tru ... ans-biden/

I particularly like this line:
They[republicans] keep finding new ways to tell us that they don’t actually believe in representative democracy, and we should believe them.


Because, like with Putin's Russia, we should listen to what they say, but we should believe what they do.
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Re: US authoritarianism

#42 Post by Octavious » Sat Nov 21, 2020 9:41 pm

And when Biden takes over from Trump on the same day as the American transfer of power has always happened, what will you believe has been done?

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Re: US authoritarianism

#43 Post by orathaic » Sun Nov 22, 2020 12:13 am

I will believe that republicans have normalised behaviour which undermines democracy.
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Re: US authoritarianism

#44 Post by Octavious » Sun Nov 22, 2020 8:41 am

You believe that using the established legal system to challenge a result you suspect to be flawed undermines democracy?

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Re: US authoritarianism

#45 Post by RoganJosh » Sun Nov 22, 2020 8:44 am

They know the result is not flawed. They're not even presenting evidence in court.
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Re: US authoritarianism

#46 Post by Octavious » Sun Nov 22, 2020 9:10 am

The result is flawed for many reasons. It's just not particularly misrepresentative of the will of the people, or illegitimate. But regardless of how you or I feel about the result, surely you must agree that people should have the right to a legal challenge if they so wish?

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Re: US authoritarianism

#47 Post by RoganJosh » Sun Nov 22, 2020 2:15 pm

No, you have a right to a legal challenge if you have a reason to suspect wrongdoing. You don't have a right to a legal challenge just because you wish.

Knowingly making false accusations is a crime in most places. As is lying to the court. And you may be sanctioned for frivolous litigation. There is a reason all serious lawyers have resigned from the Trump train wreck.
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Re: US authoritarianism

#48 Post by Octavious » Sun Nov 22, 2020 4:31 pm

The election was unusual in several respects, notably an unprecedented number of postal votes and a far higher than expected number of votes cast. Finding legitimate grounds for suspicion does not seem challenging, and I can't say I'm at all concerned by these suspicions being explored by the courts. I fully expect the courts to find no significant issues, but I find a world in which this process has happened more reassuring than one in which it hasn't.

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Re: US authoritarianism

#49 Post by Randomizer » Sun Nov 22, 2020 5:31 pm

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-legal ... 19882.html
Allegations of fraudulent voting because there were more votes cast in Michigan than registered voters in Minnesota.The questionable mental competency of Trump's remaining lawyers to make coherent legal arguments other than Trump lost so there must be fraud. Yet they can't produce documented proof.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump ... 45885.html

Meanwhile Pennsylvania's lieutenant governor is waiting to get his $1 million from the Texas governor for proving that there was a vote cast by a dead person. A Republican voter there cast one for his dead wife.
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Re: US authoritarianism

#50 Post by RoganJosh » Sun Nov 22, 2020 8:38 pm

I don't think you're paying attention, Oct.

First, it is not the court's task to investigate. If you have suspicions, but no proof, then you can of course request a recount/audit/investigation. You could file a lawsuit asking the court order an investigation, but that's not what's going on. They're filing lawsuits to have the courts disqualify millions of votes from the big cities, based on hearsay.

Also, Trump is blatantly ignoring due process. Michigan, for example, requires an initial certification of the votes before an audit can begin. (In fact, the deadline for their certification is tomorrow only to allow for sufficient time to conduct the audit before the Electoral College meets.) But Trump is trying to stop the certification of the votes, allegedly because he wants an audit.
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Re: US authoritarianism

#51 Post by orathaic » Sun Nov 22, 2020 10:16 pm

Trump being Trump doesn't surprise me, the Republicans backing him up are a threat to democracy in the US. The republicans who have gerrymandered the state electoral blu diaries for years because ultimately they don't care about democracy. They care about their own agenda first.
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Re: US authoritarianism

#52 Post by Octavious » Sun Nov 22, 2020 10:25 pm

I couldn't care less what Trump's team are actually claiming. My understanding is that there are a vast array of differing lawsuits, the details of which interest me not at all. They are going to court, and the courts will decide whether to dismiss them as nonsense or treat them as worthy of consideration and act accordingly. I fail to understand why anyone is at all concerned by this. Trump has acted against tradition and done so in a loud and obnoxious way, which is in keeping with the spirit in which the USA was founded. Big deal. People are getting extremely over excited by what amounts to very little.

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Re: US authoritarianism

#53 Post by Octavious » Sun Nov 22, 2020 10:28 pm

orathaic wrote:
Sun Nov 22, 2020 10:16 pm
Trump being Trump doesn't surprise me, the Republicans backing him up are a threat to democracy in the US. The republicans who have gerrymandered the state electoral blu diaries for years because ultimately they don't care about democracy. They care about their own agenda first.
I tend to agree, although I don't see the Democrats as any better. They have been in power for too long in recent decades and done too little to change anything to have any claim to the moral high ground.

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Re: US authoritarianism

#54 Post by RoganJosh » Sun Nov 22, 2020 10:32 pm

He's already lost 30+ lawsuits after the election.

I think the big fear lies in the millions of people who now even consider Fox News to have a liberal bias. I can't see any way back to a civil discussion. It's all about conspiracy theories from here on.
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Re: US authoritarianism

#55 Post by Octavious » Sun Nov 22, 2020 10:57 pm

RoganJosh wrote:
Sun Nov 22, 2020 10:32 pm
He's already lost 30+ lawsuits after the election.
Then the system is working to your satisfaction?
RoganJosh wrote:
Sun Nov 22, 2020 10:32 pm
I think the big fear lies in the millions of people who now even consider Fox News to have a liberal bias. I can't see any way back to a civil discussion. It's all about conspiracy theories from here on.
There have always been conspiracy theory nuts, and there always will be. There was a fun article in New Scientist a few years back that said over 90% of us hold delusional beliefs. It is an unfortunate, but natural, part of being human. Lots of people will have voted for Trump because of utter rubbish, but the same is true of many Biden voters. As far as civil discourse goes, however, it never left. Most people manage it every day on all sorts of issues. We just have a better awareness of the more enthusiastic lunatic wing of humanity who don't do civil, and because they're so fascinating to watch it's hard to ignore them.

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Re: US authoritarianism

#56 Post by flash2015 » Sun Nov 22, 2020 11:53 pm

There have always been conspiracy theory nuts, that is true. But it is new that they have entered the mainstream. It is new that the POTUS himself is deliberately spreading conspiracy nonsense...and a large number of people hang off his every word which makes it scary. There is just no equivalent from the Biden campaign.

The lawsuits in themselves are not really the issue. It is the outlandish claims which are being fed to the faithful...like that Trump really won by a landslide and that Democrats stole the election through some combination of George Soros, Venezuala, Cuba, Nancy Pelosi and mail-in voting. As yet, there does not appear to be any indication that the Trump campaign are walking back/toning down any of this nonsense. What makes this worse is that a large percentage of the Republican party are either humouring Trump...or explicitly helping him in the spread of the disinformation.

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Re: US authoritarianism

#57 Post by orathaic » Mon Nov 23, 2020 12:40 am

Octavious wrote:
Sun Nov 22, 2020 4:31 pm
The election was unusual in several respects, notably an unprecedented number of postal votes and a far higher than expected number of votes cast. Finding legitimate grounds for suspicion does not seem challenging, and I can't say I'm at all concerned by these suspicions being explored by the courts. I fully expect the courts to find no significant issues, but I find a world in which this process has happened more rgepeassuring than one in which it hasn't.
A very good counter argument : https://medium.com/indica/i-lived-throu ... 7934b1dac3

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Re: US authoritarianism

#58 Post by flash2015 » Mon Nov 23, 2020 3:18 am

We have to remember how we got here. Each time Trump has lost he has claimed "fraud":

- in the Iowa Republican primary Trump claimed that Ted Cruz stole the Iowa caucus win from him:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... w-election

- In 2016, whilst he won the electoral college, since he lost the popular vote by 2.8M Trump conveniently claimed that there were 3M illegal votes for Hillary:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/pos ... ular-vote/

He created a fake investigation which of course didn't find anything because the claim was complete and utter nonsense:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... ved-kobach

- Now he claims the 2020 election was rigged...even though the Republicans gained seats in the House and were able to hold the Senate. In California where it switched to all mail-in voting in 2020, it looks like the Republicans gained four seats:

https://calmatters.org/politics/post-it ... onal-wins/

We have to remember, whether you agree or disagree with mail-in voting, that until very recently it had bipartisan support. The reform to expand mail-in voting in Pennsylvania was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. As the Senate Republican leader, Jake Corman said:

“The people of Pennsylvania have sent divided government to Harrisburg and, with that, this is what governing looks like. We are thankful for the governor’s willingness to work with us to enact the most historic change in how we cast votes since the election code was enacted in 1937. Compromise has given Pennsylvanians a modernized election code that preserves the integrity of the ballot box and makes it easier for voters to choose the people who represent them.”

https://www.governor.pa.gov/newsroom/go ... in-voting/

This all changed when Trump looked at the numbers, realized that democrats would vote by mail more than republicans, and decided to try and deligitimize mail-in voting...and Republicans in Pennsylvania switched to supporting him. For example Republicans now blocked early canvassing of absentee ballots even though 17 other states do this (including Texas and Florida - this is why Florida's results came so quickly):

https://ballotpedia.org/When_states_can ... lots,_2020

Or they now are trying to invalidate ballots postmarked by election day but received later...even though 22 other states (from Texas to California) allowed this:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-e ... y-n1246044

And they also complained about curing of absentee ballots even though in 18 other states they had no problem with this:

https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections ... ncies.aspx

This voter fraud narrative always has been a scam...and no-one should be taking this nonsense seriously.

Interestingly enough the Republican Secretary of State in Georgia believes Trump may have lost the state because he suppressed the Republican mail-in vote with his nonsense:

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watc ... self-state

But of course Trump's lawyer, Sidney Powell, now says that the GOP in Georgia must be part of the vast conspiracy against him. This is so nuts:

https://atlantaintownpaper.com/2020/11/ ... onspiracy/

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Re: US authoritarianism

#59 Post by Octavious » Mon Nov 23, 2020 3:43 am

@ ora

Is it a good counter argument? It just seems like someone trying to redefine a coup to make the US election look more like one. What powers that don't belong to him has Trump taken, exactly?
flash2015 wrote:
Sun Nov 22, 2020 11:53 pm
The lawsuits in themselves are not really the issue. It is the outlandish claims which are being fed to the faithful...like that Trump really won by a landslide and that Democrats stole the election through some combination of George Soros, Venezuala, Cuba, Nancy Pelosi and mail-in voting
An intriguing argument. Jeremy Corbyn was, in many ways, a lot like Trump, and he and his Labour Party have been severely hurt by the now proven antisemitism. What evidence is there for Trump and the Republican Party doing the same? I don't recall hearing about any antisemitic tweets, but I never read them all.

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Re: US authoritarianism

#60 Post by Randomizer » Mon Nov 23, 2020 4:56 am

I don't have the links, but you should be able to find them. In the last year Trump made several speeches where he claimed or used phrases that implied Jewish Americans were loyal to Israel and not the US. Jews that voted Democratic were ant-American.

Trump has retweeted from anti-semitic sites cartoons and memes featuring caricatures and stereotypes about Jews. Back in his first year, Trump publicly complained that his now Jewish daughter and son-in-law were observing Passover instead of being in Washington to lobby for his first budget (the one that called for defunding 100,000 police officers).


"What powers that don't belong to him has Trump taken, exactly?"

Trump has usurped the Congress's power to decide spending by redirecting funds to areas he wants from the border wall to a proposed senior drug card.

Destruction of government records in violation of the Record Keeping Act.

Appointing officials to office without Senate approval to enact orders without public discussion or lawful authority to make them.

Governing by tweet instead of orders to departments.

Using the Attorney General, Barr, act as his personal lawyer.

Having government employees violate the Hatch Act to do campaigning during the time they are doing government work.

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