How Democracies Destroy Themselves

The Off-Topic forum for anything non-LDS related, such as sports or politics. Rated PG through PG-13.
Post Reply
Gunnar
God
Posts: 3787
Joined: Thu Oct 29, 2020 6:32 pm
Location: California

How Democracies Destroy Themselves

Post by Gunnar »

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/MgmB4FDxKEU

Yet another insightful video from Lucas Bean.

Some my favorite comments from the comments section:
Just like the industrialists in 1930's Germany. They loved Hitler because he got rid of the communists. Controlled the trade unions. And made them rich.
And we all know how that ended.
Lindsay Graham predicted the destruction of thec Republican Party if they nominated Dementia Don in 2016, then a few years later, he was weeping on TV, trying to convince people to vote for braindead Herschel Walker. Lindsay Graham apparently was a person with foresight and he transformed himself into a trained seal.
It's ironic his take on the scorpion and fox crossing a stream then the scorpion stinging the fox halfway across and they both drown is spot on true...dmango being the scorpion and Republicans the fox...they knew what he was when they took him in...
I consider myself an educated conservative. I think the GOP has abandoned it's core values a long time ago. If I were the next president I'd order the FBI to investigate every law maker that has visited Russia in the last 20 year.
This is the natural turn of events when a criminal culture (the Republican Party from 1920 onward at least) combined with racists (America First movement of the 1930s on, and Nixon's Southern Strategy welcoming them in), through McCarthy, Nixon, Agnew, Reagan and the evil people who directed the actor, then the idiot puppet Bushes who followed, they made for the ultimate racist, criminal and corrupt party we see today. It was additive. They learned from each other what they could get away with vs weak and complicit Democrats.
As Lucas said:
". . .what is left is not a political party anymore. It is a loyalty club with a registration card. The Republican party does not debate policy anymore; it only debates who is loyal enough to survive the next purge."
Why Maga Supports Trump

As Lucas Bean very credibly pointed out, MAGA consists of broken, narcissistic people who resent not being granted superior status and preference merely for being white. Trump succeeded in revitalizing the waning racial bigotry that had made it possible for Obama to be elected, and showing, tragically, that even a cruel, hateful, militantly ant-intellectual, convicted felon could delude enough American voters to get himself elected. Trump, to the detriment of all of us, managed to reopen doors to racism, cruelty, ignorance, unreason and anti-intellectualism that should have been fully and permanently closed.

As Lucas correctly maintained, anyone offended by this video is a part of the problem and is complicit in ultra conservative and corporate attempts to destroy what remains of our Democratic Republic. I agree with him that Obama, by becoming our first Black President, broke a barrier that should have been broken centuries ago, and that Trump has spent much of his life (especially since the time he was first elected) doing his best to restore and reinforce that evil barrier for his own selfish benefit and to the great detriment of nearly everyone else, including, whether they realize it or not, even his MAGA followers who bought into and are still buying into his narcissistic, horribly corrupt and wicked scam!
No precept or claim is more suspect or more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
User avatar
Gadianton
God
Posts: 6683
Joined: Sun Oct 25, 2020 11:56 pm
Location: Elsewhere

Re: How Democracies Destroy Themselves

Post by Gadianton »

Not sure I agree with this:
Just like the industrialists in 1930's Germany. They loved Hitler because he got rid of the communists. Controlled the trade unions. And made them rich.
And we all know how that ended.
Perhaps I don't know who he means by "they". If he meant the industrialists of the 1830s were made rich by corrupt government contracts, just like today with Don Jr. and so on, then sure, but it seems like a restricted point. Hitler would be more like Putin and his war time economy and his oligarchs. A few may benefit today from corruption, but in general the key policies, like tariffs, are hurting our own "industrialists" and small businesses alike. Let's not confuse the issue and pretend that the executive orders of this administration are making the rich richer or are good for business in general. The economy was already hot and it's hard slow that momentum. UniUni, which most haven't heard of, is a China-backed Canadian company that 10x'd when the administration tried to kill ecommerce by tariffs. They are slaughtering the FedEx and UPS ecommerce residential delivery business. I suppose these Canadian-Chinese industrialists are loving this. Thankfully there are no worker protection laws so individual American drivers can freelance package deliver for cheap instead of drive a truck for UPS for a good salary and health benefits.

I just feel like the statement sets up a tension between capitalism and communism, and identifying things like trade unions as communist, when really what we're looking at is government corruption that briefly sustains certain sectors or a war-time economy, but that doesn't have anything to do with the financial triumph of industrialism per se or making a country wealthy. It was a conventional free market post ww2 that made German industrialists in general rich. West Germany thrived, East Germany didn't. Communism certainly did not help East Germany financially. Hitler, Putin, and the current administration have a lot in common as corporatists, but this is NOT Laissez-faire capitalism. The only difference between the foreign examples and our own is one of scale, as the current administration has nowhere near the control of Hitler and Putin. If they ever get that control, they will absolutely destroy us.

The Iran war has only cost 38 billion so far. Anyone believe that? Not even Binger would swallow that.

We can have conversations about policy that involve trade unions or worker protection that fall totally within a capitalist framework. Having worker protection doesn't make a nation socialist anymore than not having them makes a nation capitalist.
"if you can't admire Joe Biden as a person then it's probably, you got a problem." -- Lindsey Graham
Post Reply