Can Our Democracy Survive This?

[_Mayan Elephant]

Gunnar,

That's all very scary sounding. And one sure does get to feel great about being on the less scary side. The issue though is how your argument and points are made in a vacuum of back-slapping condescending BS. It all hinges on the vain assumption that there was an opposite good choice where all things were peachy. Hillary and the Clinton machine are every bit as racist, if not more. They are uninspiring to most states and most Americans who vote in each of those states. She sucked.

Schmo and others deride any person or point of view that doesn't blow proverbial smoke up the left's ass. While he and others may have hope and respect for America, the disdain for Americans is clear.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Doc, I don't think Some Schmo loves this country any less than you do. I agree (and I think he does too) that this is an awesome country in many ways with a great as yet not fully realized potential. He is rightly concerned, as am I, that with the election of Trump, this country is in grave danger of rapidly become much less awesome and much less democratic and more autocratic and authoritarian to the detriment of almost everyone not in the top one percent, especially women and minorities. Trump is very clearly in this mainly for himself, and is already proposing or taking actions that would greatly erode some of the basic rights guaranteed to all of us by the constitution, particularly our first amendment rights of freedom of speech, the press and religion. He is openly trying to halt or even reverse any progress towards ameliorating human caused climate change and transitioning to a more efficient, less dependent on fossil fuels energy economy. The potential damage he can accomplish in the next 4 years by his abysmal ignorance and selfishness on these issues will be very hard to recover from, if at all.

I do, too. The best way I can explain my comments toward the hyperventalating Leftists on this board is this:

Gunnar,

That's all very scary sounding. And one sure does get to feel great about being on the less scary side. The issue though is how your argument and points are made in a vacuum of back-slapping condescending ****. It all hinges on the vain assumption that there was an opposite good choice where all things were peachy. Hillary and the Clinton machine are every bit as racist, if not more. They are uninspiring to most states and most Americans who vote in each of those states. She sucked.

Schmo and others deride any person or point of view that doesn't blow proverbial smoke up the left's ass. While he and others may have hope and respect for America, the disdain for Americans is clear.

Guys like SS, KevinG, and other Leftist crybabies are just so full of crap. They do every_single_thing they claim the Right does when it comes to declaratives, ad homs, partisanship, name calling, and faith-based thinking. And then, of course, comes the victimology 101 when it doesn't go their way.

I'm just sick of partisans taking a heaping crap all over a country I love, and a country that is clearly among the best in the world. It is. It's indisputable. But whatever. I haven't travelled enough. Or I'm a racist. Or a misogynist. Or privileged. Or something. Whatever.

Did any of the complainers on this forum literally work for Bernie Sanders? Or did they throw some money his way and call it a day? Did they do anything during the primaries and general election aside from internet warrioring? My money is on NOPE.

- Doc

[_deacon blues]

I don't think our problems can begin to compare with the problems of the 1960's, or 1940's, let alone the problems of the 1860's, or 1400's (black plague) etc. If You were born in 1980's or later, you have missed a lot. Gosh, I've never missed a meal (except fasting) in my life, and I'm 61. WWII created many times the refugees we have now.

[_The CCC]

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel".
Samuel Johnson

I have no desire to make American Great Again. It is already great, but needs improvements to include more of its citizens into the Great American Dream.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel".
Samuel Johnson

I have no desire to make American Great Again. It is already great, but needs improvements to include more of its citizens into the Great American Dream.

I think I'd vote for you.

- Doc

[_The CCC]

I've been asked to run for public office before. But seriously; I'm a very private person and have no desire to be in the political fishbowl.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I've been asked to run for public office before. But seriously; I'm a very private person and have no desire to be in the political fishbowl.

Ah, yes. Too many skeletons in the closet.

- Doc

[_Chap]

... It all hinges on the vain assumption that there was an opposite good choice where all things were peachy. ...

Er, no. You may think in that kind of binary way, but I think most posters on this board are a bit more subtle.

I don't think anybody on this board has claimed that Clinton was an excellent candidate for the Democrats to have put up, or that she would have been the best president since <name of favored president>. I am sure that her administration might well have acted in ways that would have been open to criticism, and that her personality faults would have continued to operate. She might even have been a rather bad president - I only say might, since that was not inevitable. But when she left office, the US would still have had its political institutions in place and functioning, and a better president could have repaired any damage she might have done.

The point is that Clinton in a Clinton administration would have attempted to fulfill the role of President in some kind of recognizable and coherent way, with some kind of rational discussion of policy among advisors and aides who knew what they were talking about, and who had some sense of what was possible and where the major threats might come from. Trump, on the other hand, does not seem to have any conception of the Presidential role, apart from the fact that even more people will read his tweets than before, and the fact that his world-wide business will profit immensely from the office he will hold.

An analogy: You need a plumber. You have a choice between

(a) being visited by someone who does actually know about faucets, pipework, drains etc., and has mended quite a few of them in a more or less satisfactory way, but comes with the warning that you need to check that he really has supplied you with the required quality of parts, and that his bill is not padded.

(b) being visited by ... it's hard to find an analogy. Not a plumber, certainly. He is a big, loud-talking guy who keeps telling you that you are going to have really great showers, that the water flowing from your faucets will taste like champagne, but he has no plumbing tools with him, and his truck is labelled 'Koko the clown'. He opens the windows and yells threats at your neighbors, accusing them of having blocked your toilet. He brandishes weapons at them, and challenges them to a fight. After a while you notice that his kids have arrived too, and appear to be trying to turn your yard into some kind of used car lot. He uses your phone without asking permission, and seems to be doing a lot of business from your house, with people who don't speak English ... he won't show you a bill, and seems to have taken over your house for good ...

See what I mean?

Oh, and a Happy Christmas, if that greeting is acceptable to you. Otherwise, I hope you are having a good time in whatever way suits you best.

It's a dark time in the world, as it has so often been before, and anything that makes us hope for a return of at least a little light is worth holding on to. Then, of course, we have to make it happen as best we can. There is nothing out there that can help us ... there is only us.

Rational discourse on a board like this is perhaps one very small contribution to that.

[_EAllusion]

The triumph of Western liberalism, especially from the late-period cold war on, had given a lot of people, myself included, a great deal of optimism that the world is getting better all the time and will continue to do so. Liberal markets and liberal democracies combined have been improving the lives of people in the world at a pace and degree that is so staggering it is hard to take in all at once. The political freedoms and standards of living of humanity has been rocketing into an unparalleled golden age. Moreover, there had been wide understanding that once a nation liberalizes, it becomes very resilient to falling back into illiberalism. Mature democracies rarely fall. And democracies rarely go to war with one another.

There was a lot of reason to be optimistic and to tell pessimists to relax because the world is getting better day by day.

Then, since a little after the turn of the century a trend developed in the world where it is getting less free over time. Indexes that measure freedom in the world have been gradually moving backward right at the time when it seemed like the upward march was inevitable. More and more academic work has been turning up flaws in an optimistic belief that western liberalism is self-sustaining. It's become apparent that there are vulnerabilities all over the place. The US, the crown jewel of world democracy and its military benefactor, has been becoming increasingly vulnerable to authoritarian takeover. Then we have the election of Trump, someone who essentially ran on an illiberal ideology with the Republican party behind him collectively imploding into a state of complicity and quasi-fascist leanings.

This is depressing. While there may be a lot of disagreement on the political spectrum among the intellectual class, there does seem to be a mutual support of Western liberalism among all but a fringe of America's elite thinkers. This is why you there's a palpable despair among that class covering a huge range of political beliefs.

[_Maxine Waters]

Then, since a little after the turn of the century a trend developed in the world where it is getting less free over time.

It amazes me that someone like you could promote the idea of freedom with a straight face. Your disdain for white working people and your usurpation of their paychecks through massive income taxation increases is as far from freedom as one could ever get. Couple that with your efforts to destroy law and order with your antipolice rhetoric and championing of black lives matter terrorists and we start to see at whose mercy disarmed citizens really would find themselves under your policies.

The only liberty citizens would ever possess if you had your way is the freedom to bow down and do whatever an arrogant intellectual elite like yourself would command. You think you're more intelligent than everyone else and therefore have the right to appoint yourself as supreme dictator. You're no libertarian inasmuch as the word has anything to do with freedom. See John Stossel if you want to know what real libertarianism is, not EAllusion.