You’d think a hegemony with a 100-years tradition of upkeeping democracy against major non-democratic players, would have some mechanism that would prevent itself from throwing down it’s key ideology.

Is it really that the president is all that decides about the future of democracy itself? Is 53 out of 100 senate seats really enough to make country fall into authoritarian regime? Is the army really not constitutionally obliged to step in and save the day?

I’d never think that, of all places, American democracy would be the most volatile.

    • ddplfOP
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      6 hours ago

      So you actually need majority to PREVENT the collapse of democracy, and if you don’t have it, you’re fucked? How the fuck did this country even manage not to succumb into dictatorship for such a long time?

        • Forbo@lemmy.ml
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          54 minutes ago

          People democratically sat on their asses and didn’t bother to fucking vote. More people abstained from voting than actually voted for either candidate. The real winner of the election was apathy. We deserve whatever fucked up outcome we get.

      • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        Worse… The House makes the impeachment charge, that’s a 50% majority vote.

        THEN it goes to the Senate for conviction where you need a 2/3rds majority to remove them. 67/100.

        That’s the body which can’t do anything because they’re blocked by a 60 vote super majority to over-ride a filibuster.

        So you get 218 in the House, goes to the Senate, needs 60 votes to end debate and proceed with charges, then 67 votes to convict and remove.

        Trump’s first impeachment got 48 and 47 votes.
        His second was 57 votes.

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_impeachment_trial_of_Donald_Trump

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_impeachment_of_Donald_Trump

        If he had been convicted, he would have been inelligible to run in '24.

      • alleycat@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        If enough people in a democracy decide that they want a dictatorship instead, then there is no stopping it, because rules don’t matter at this point. The trick is to don’t let it get this far. Tough shit for the US, though.

      • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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        6 hours ago

        I mean imagine if you could impeach the president without a majority. That would be the death of democracy. Just to put things in perspective: The GOP democratically won both houses of Congress and the presidency and because of DNC incompetence also has the Supreme Court. Them being able to do whatever the fuck they want is, in a way, democracy working as intended. It’d be weirder (and much more undemocratic) if there was a way to remove a sitting president without the Supreme Court or Congress.

        • KoboldCoterie@pawb.social
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          4 hours ago

          It’d be weirder (and much more undemocratic) if there was a way to remove a sitting president without the Supreme Court or Congress.

          Turns out there is, in fact. It just doesn’t involve governmental process at all. You’re quite correct that it’s undemocratic. (See: Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy)

        • ddplfOP
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          6 hours ago

          This only proves that two-party system is just an authoritarianism with rotation. There’s always a ruling majority and the winner takes all.

          Things would be different with at least the third party. 2 out of 3 parties would agree that the party no.3 is a fucking malice and rule him out.

          • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 hours ago

            Two party system wasn’t in the constitution, its an emergent property of FPTP voting method. FPTP + Electoral College means we get this fucking bullshit.

            TLDR: There’s no “two-party system”, that’s just the result of FPTP. Nuke the FPTP system, replace with Ranked-Choice ballot (and also delete the Electoral College, that shit is outdated AF).

            • Monkey With A Shell@lemmy.socdojo.com
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              1 hour ago

              Very much on the electoral college, it made some measure of sense when the electors would have to ride a horse from California to DC maybe but that died a century or so ago.

              From a smart ass perspective though, I just want to point that the TLDR portion actually has more words than the block above it. 🙃

              • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                37 minutes ago

                From a smart ass perspective though, I just want to point that the TLDR portion actually has more words than the block above it. 🙃

                Lol I started to use “TLDR” as a replacement for “In Conclusion”, because the concluding paragraph is supposed to summarize what you wrote anyways, so those terms are interchangeable.

          • evidences@lemmy.world
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            5 hours ago

            Third party would most likely make things better but there’s no guarantee it would help in the situation you’ve set up. If two of the parties are fine with an actual Nazi in the White House and between them they control over half the votes then we’re still in the same situation.

      • Ogmios@sh.itjust.works
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        6 hours ago

        Well the country didn’t previously have a legion of mouth breathing retards screaming at the top of their lungs about micro-aggressions and declaring that the nation was illegitimate. I’d also question your metrics for deciding now that he’s an openly Nazi dictator, other than parroting what you hear from other people social media accounts.

        • ddplfOP
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          6 hours ago

          Yes it had, and that legion even stormed the fucking capitol.