The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare
theglobeandmail.com
theglobeandmail.com
Ultimately these analysts and policy people have been proven wrong many times and have shown how clueless they are.
> By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be governed by a right-wing dictatorship.
When the article opens with blatant polarized opening line like this you have to question. It reminds me the whole Russian election conspiracy saga. Has the author visited Portland, Oregon before? Or SF for that matter? If anything America is just as vulnerable of being cracked by left wing autocracy if not more.
One of the biggest tragedies of misinformation online is the failure of readers to understand that opinion sections of all newspapers are meant to be garbage heaps, and not to have quality at all. They were originally blank parts of the newspaper they felt like filling up, and today they became so popular since all garbage heaps are popular (see: any fashion magazine, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, 4chan, etc), so they have to publish more and more and again, just publish whatever in there as if it were a forum, and try not to censor as long as it is written well. It's a "first-tier" internet comment section for a newspaper.
When you read a newspaper, the proper way to read it is to throw the ads out first, then the opinion pages, then start reading. On the internet, you only see the opinion pages because that's all that gets shared because it's the most outrageous and most like a tabloid, then the header is seen and assumed they are the source.
DISCLAIMER: Just because the header says "Hacker News" and "YCombinator" this comment does not represent the views of either group.
It could open up far more vectors to manipulate elections and the premise and is it true that people still are excluded from voting? Or is this just to shift voting weights in another direction?
The article goes into great depth about how the title premise is possible. Essentially, Trump getting a second term could have drastic consequences for democracy in the US. We are not immune to the things talked about in the article. Because they haven't happen in the past does not mean they can't. I agree with the article that we are closer to a crisis of democracy than at almost any other time in our history.
I also think the author's Canadian citizenship and field of study gives him a far more objective, and probably globally representative, view of the current US situation.
I do agree with the article that 2024 could be an inflection point where the U.S. fundamentally moves away from democracy, but it is not a given that this happens under a Trump presidency, because it seems also possible that a second Biden presidency declares martial law to control millions of angry and armed Trump supporters.
Canada, on the other hand, has enjoyed the unbroken reign of Queen Elizabeth II the whole time.
There was a period of respite from that following Nixon's resignation in 1974, the Church and other hearings over FBI and CIA overreach, and the attainment of some of the goals of the Civil Rights and Peace movements of the 1950s--1970s.
None of that obviates the argument that there's not been a considerable backsliding and numerous unprecedented developments in the subsequent decades, including over the past administration and to the present.
But otherwise, I do agree that to say the US is in some sort of crisis seem pretty laughable compared to the 1960's.
>It's really amazing that the political faction obsessed with deploying a union of state and corporate power to silence their political opponents has somehow convinced itself that they're the ones fighting -- rather than constructing -- a fascist order.
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1477738083684880384
Not to mention the indefinite suspension of civil liberties in favor of the "new normal" of a bio-security state.
You do realize that that implies that it would be less fascist if the government could force a private company to publish falsehoods and propaganda, right?
No, I do not. How do you figure?
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
But the decisions to censor content is just the same. Because the content they removed would have put a bad light on running litigation suits between company and state and the state demands most of the content changes we see on social media through such vehicles. I believe your reasoning is wrong here.
If the US is involved in the battle, then who would arm the insurrection!? /s
Wars usually have well defined lines but civil wars don't need such clear distinctions.
Why should individuals be compelled to stay in a dysfunctional relationship? If the political opposition is as intolerable or deplorable as some say, wouldn't it be better to part ways peacefully?
I worry that my fellow Americans are definitely getting complacent about all the good the federal government does. The fall of the US Fed would end the free world rather quickly.
It's the propaganda version of grooming.
I see it as a low probability, high impact. I hesitate to put a number on it, but it's an eventuality that we need to prepare for. In the military, we do a lot of war-gaming to ferret out what might happen. You may have heard of the Transition Integrity Project that occurred about six months before the last election. We played four scenarios. And what we did not play is a U.S. military compromised; not to the degree that the United States is compromised today as far as 39% of the Republican party refusing to accept President Biden as president, but a compromise nonetheless. So we advocate that that particular scenario needs to be addressed in a future war-game held well in advance of 2024.
https://www.npr.org/2021/12/29/1068895489/low-probability-hi...
Now, a coup... that definitely could happen...
Essentially a President could do what Trump failed to do, and end the democratic elections for Presidents. Hell, Trump basically laid out a blueprint, he's an idiot so sure he failed..but it's kinda scary how far he did go.
If a President like Biden even who felt the country was falling into chaos got the military on his side for the 'sake' of America, even if he genuinely was well-intentioned... then there's not going to be a civil war because it's basically us vs the U.S. military and there's no way anyone can defeat that at this point. Our tax-dollars have made sure.
It def. won't be like the Civil War, more like the People vs the Machines in Terminator... or what's going down in Myanmar and other places in the world.
Personally, I think we need a full rewrite and do-over.
A virtual constitutional congress to draft a 2022 version of the constitution and one that's more fair.
To make it more fair, I think maybe everyone should be allowed a vote who maybe passes a competancy exam showing they know the subject material or have a base understanding of how the country works.
Or we could just select lawyers who at least know constitutional law really well, some economists, scientists, educators -- maybe even elect the individuals who'll represent their 'field' at the table so there's a well-rounded discussion on everything going into.
And how do you want to accomplish that? A coup? Any rewrite or do-over is going to require overthrowing the current government in some way.
One thing I find interesting is how everyone expecting a coup is also calling for a coup themselves. That's fully why I expect the civil war to happen, not because one side is going to cause a coup, but I'm expecting two coups simultaneously. Or three or four or something. Like everyone is trying to grab at their own interpretation of the constitution minus the parts that inconvenience them.
Or we could, you know, stick to the one we have during a moment of like 10 national crises and figure out the politics after the entire world stabilizes a bit rather than destabilize our own government right when China and Russia want us to so they can distract us fighting ourselves while they reach into the cookie jars of Ukraine and Taiwan setting off a chain reaction that would put us at a severe disadvantage at.
Their entire playbook has been spoken out loud multiple times by them, by the people here domestically, then the people here repeating the same warnings domestically end up just forming their own version of it. It's the same thing they did in Crimea, announce they are subverting your ideology, then leave the enemy to Lord of the Flies it out fight it out to figure out who is the enemy ideologically subversive element McCarthyism style. Except here I think they don't really care what happens and would rather we just fall to anarchy (as if we aren't already there), just to keep us away from their doings abroad.
I'll just finish with something I've been saying for at least 20 years, since many people have been saying "we need a constitutional convention for X" on both sides of the aisle for so long. If we have a constitutional convention (or a "full rewrite and do-over", what do you think the people you disagree with are going to add in there? This applies to anyone of any belief system. Just think about it. Do you want that?
> To make it more fair, I think maybe everyone should be allowed a vote who maybe passes a competancy exam showing they know the subject material or have a base understanding of how the country works.
Who is going to make these tests? That's literal voter suppression, and anti-democratic. That idea by itself is a literal threat to the concept of democracy, even if it's non-violent. People should not need to be experts in all fields just to vote. I've followed politics for decades and stuff still comes up that I don't know, and I know lawyers who have practiced for many decades who say that despite knowing everything they know and everything they've experienced, they don't feel they know enough about anything. The world is not a simple system that you can fit into any brain, let alone all brains.
> Or we could just select lawyers who at least know constitutional law really well, some economists, scientists, educators -- maybe even elect the individuals who'll represent their 'field' at the table so there's a well-rounded discussion on everything going into.
That's why we have the federal and state bureaucracies to inform the legislature with educated skilled professionals in their fields.
No it won't. I think 35 governors can actually vote to have a constitutional congress meet iirc... then they have to do it. Peacefully. Existing govt stays intact until the new one replaces it.
I find it telling that HN don't want to discuss something which tech has largely enabled via social networking sites...
And that if this is considered, finding ways in which the relevant technology / tech industry elements of such issues can be discussed may become apparent.
Really surprising to me that a SuperPAC hasn’t funded this yet.