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Donald Trump is the Tyrant George Washington Feared (www.theatlantic.com)

submitted 1 month ago by FenrirIII@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

36 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/20724006

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[-] MyOpinion@lemm.ee 36 points 1 month ago

This is the moment we can lose our republic. Nuts that it could be to MAGA morons.

[-] psycho_driver@lemmy.world 28 points 1 month ago

I'm pretty sure he feared a Tyrant smarter than Trump, but if we fail with Trump as the litmus test . . . well. Better luck next democracy I guess?

[-] jagged_circle@feddit.nl -4 points 1 month ago

When was the US ever a democracy?

[-] nednobbins@lemm.ee 12 points 1 month ago

That seems unlikely, since the constitution doesn't really include safeguards against someone like Trump.

The founding fathers were afraid of a King (at least some of them were). They put all kinds of limits on the power of the executive but they assumed people would follow those rules. They never really considered the possibility of a private citizens gaining so much power that they can ignore government.

[-] orbitz@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 month ago

Wasn't the electoral college and impeachment bits supposed to be safeguard from people like Trump? I'm actually curious because I'm not American but so many things I've read said those were supposed to help that sort of thing. Not that it's helped.

I thought another big thing they didn't count on was so many members of Congress following that sort person.

Also yes I agree they didn't think of the possibility of someone being able to ignore laws because that'd be absurd not to put someone on trial speedily regardless of the position they held.

[-] HawlSera@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago

Indeed and ironically they largely caused it instead

[-] nednobbins@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

There's quite a lot of disagreements between historians on why there's an electoral college https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/k5hv2m/what_was_the_founders_purpose_in_creating_the/

We have a lot of laws that protect people from government. The complement to such a policy is that we reduce the amount of protection government has from people.

If you assume that your government is bad or that it will inevitably become bad then this is a great policy to reduce bad government. The flip side is that if we expect government to protect us from individual bad citizens who have gained a lot of power it's harder.

edit: grammar

[-] Wogi@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

Yes and no

The system was always supposed to protect those in power from those without. The system is designed so that the masses have extremely limited power to remove people like trump if the people with money want him there.

[-] ruk_n_rul 10 points 1 month ago

Needs an unpaywalled link.

[-] whostosay@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

Anyone can do it, copy and paste the link to the archive.

You'd be doing yourself and a lot of other people a favor.

[-] todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee 7 points 1 month ago

You could have been the one doing a favor, instead you were a scold.

[-] whostosay@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Give a man a fish

[-] dr_scientist@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

https://archive.is/rEQMr

[-] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Not everyone can do it. The archive sites sometimes present captchas that don't load for users with hardened web browsers

[-] Gammelfisch@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

For George, the Revolution was a business decision to maximize profits. However, he did sign the US Constitution which is what every American should defend and it is the same document the MAGATs would like to destroy.

[-] ShutUpDonnie@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 month ago

The tree of liberty is looking thirsty.

[+] Asafum@feddit.nl -8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

And our electorate is in part why the electoral college exists and why the founders thought we shouldn't have a direct vote: we're too fucking stupid and too easily swayed by a populist. Too bad the actual electors won't do what they're allowed to do and not vote for Trump even if the people do.

[-] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 17 points 1 month ago

At the time the electoral college was instituted, only white land owning men could vote, the majority of the population was illiterate, and only the very rich could afford to be well-versed in the affairs of state.

To compare that horse and buggy time with today's world with near-complete literacy, mass media and widespread internet access is even more moronic than you are pretending that the electorate is.

The problem isn't that Americans are significantly dumber than the people of other nations.

It's that the US is one of the most propagandized nations in the world due to billionaires, hectomillionaires, their corporations, and their industry associations owning the mainstream media and the vast majority of the politicians as well as the political machines pulling the strings behind the scenes.

Revered as minor deities as they are, the Founding Fathers couldn't have predicted the conditions 250 years into the future. Including the fact that the very mechanism they included to make sure that the constitution would be updated to fit the times, the amendment process, would become functionally impossible.

Tl;Dr: the problem isn't people being too stupid, the problem is that the will of the people has been overruled by organized corruption and propaganda.

[-] qprimed@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

isnt what we are currently experiencing an unhealthy reaction to the that same propagandized society? hard to pump shit into peoples heads for decades and not get some sort of sociopathic, immune-like response. many of our fellow citizens really do want to see it all burn right now. everything has been calcified and these people are lashing out in, what I think is, the worst possible way.

in many respects the very thinking processes of our society have been perverted in service to the whims of the richest. I consider this a bit of a dumbing down of our civic intelligence, but... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[-] Asafum@feddit.nl 1 points 1 month ago

While I absolutely understand propaganda is the issue (my comment history is chock full of "I fucking hate propagandists") we're all subject to the same information that others can't seem to see through. That someone like MTG can stay in government isn't completely the fault of propaganda, you have to be stupid enough to not see how absolutely stupid and hateful people like her are and choose to vote for them again and again.

this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2024

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