It's not just Trump who threatens our democracy, it's everyone who supports him.

[E'Town4Bama 109]

After reading a lot of this, are we a democracy or a republic? I guess that has been a question for the last 50 years...................................

[homersapien 11,373]

On 12/11/2023 at 7:52 PM, E'Town4Bama said:

After reading a lot of this, are we a democracy or a republic? I guess that has been a question for the last 50 years...................................

A democratic republic - one in which our representatives are chosen in a popular election - is a form of democracy. 

Edited January 6 by homersapien

[E'Town4Bama 109]

8 hours ago, homersapien said:

A democratic republic - one in which our representatives are chosen in a popular election is a form of democracy. 

I guess it is just an opinion. Since The Act of 1870, We are corporation for arguments sake................................

[SaltyTiger 7,803]

On 12/11/2023 at 6:52 PM, E'Town4Bama said:

After reading a lot of this, are we a democracy or a republic? I guess that has been a question for the last 50 years...................................

Couple of articles…..

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/understanding-democratic-decline-in-the-united-states/

 

Conclusion

The effort by President Trump to subvert the 2020 election is the most obvious, but far from the only, example of democratic backsliding in the United States. State legislatures under GOP control have moved to reduce voters’ access to the ballot and to politicize election administration. President Trump also engaged in unprecedented efforts to undermine the independent civil service. The Supreme Court has increased its authority over election adjudication, narrowed the scope of voting rights protections, and seems inclined to support some politicization of executive branch administration. Hyperpartisanship and gridlock leave Congress poorly positioned to provide checks on executive and judicial power.

https://act.represent.us/sign/democracy-republic
 

Bonus: Is the United States still a democracy/republic?

In the literal sense of the word, yes. In practice, the answer is more complicated. In 2016, The Economist Intelligence Unit downgraded the United States from a “full democracy” to a “flawed democracy” in its Democracy Report, an annual study of the “state of democracy” around the world.

There were a number of reasons the nation’s rating fell, but one of the most important was the American public’s declining trust in government. Our system of government depends on citizens being able to freely elect leaders who will represent their interests. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen. In a study published 2014, two political scientists found that, on average, the policies representatives pursue are not in fact dictated by public opinion. This is the mark of a flawed democracy/republic: election without true representation.

In 2021, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) classified the United States as a "backsliding democracy" for the first time.

So, is the United States a democracy or a republic?

The United States is both a democracy and a republic.

 

 

 

Edited December 15, 2023 by SaltyTiger

[E'Town4Bama 109]

On 12/14/2023 at 8:54 PM, SaltyTiger said:

Couple of articles…..

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/understanding-democratic-decline-in-the-united-states/

 

Conclusion

The effort by President Trump to subvert the 2020 election is the most obvious, but far from the only, example of democratic backsliding in the United States. State legislatures under GOP control have moved to reduce voters’ access to the ballot and to politicize election administration. President Trump also engaged in unprecedented efforts to undermine the independent civil service. The Supreme Court has increased its authority over election adjudication, narrowed the scope of voting rights protections, and seems inclined to support some politicization of executive branch administration. Hyperpartisanship and gridlock leave Congress poorly positioned to provide checks on executive and judicial power.

https://act.represent.us/sign/democracy-republic
 

Bonus: Is the United States still a democracy/republic?

In the literal sense of the word, yes. In practice, the answer is more complicated. In 2016, The Economist Intelligence Unit downgraded the United States from a “full democracy” to a “flawed democracy” in its Democracy Report, an annual study of the “state of democracy” around the world.

There were a number of reasons the nation’s rating fell, but one of the most important was the American public’s declining trust in government. Our system of government depends on citizens being able to freely elect leaders who will represent their interests. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen. In a study published 2014, two political scientists found that, on average, the policies representatives pursue are not in fact dictated by public opinion. This is the mark of a flawed democracy/republic: election without true representation.

In 2021, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) classified the United States as a "backsliding democracy" for the first time.

So, is the United States a democracy or a republic?

The United States is both a democracy and a republic.

 

 

 

Either way, we are doomed...........................

[PUB78 1,358]

On 12/8/2023 at 12:27 PM, homersapien said:

And your ignorance of history is showing again.  You obviously don't know much about the recent history of fascism.

I suggest you try reasing "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" by William Shirer.  (He wrote it while on the Joseph McCarthy "black list.)

Watching such dark history trying repeat itself is hardly paranoia. It's common sense wisdom.

 

On 12/8/2023 at 2:02 PM, homersapien said:

The absurd imaginings of far right wackos hardly reveal the "intentions" of the Democratic party.    Only a gullible fool would actually beleive that.

On the other hand, there's no doubt about confusing the intentions of dictator-loving Donald Trump.  He has stated them up front:

Trump's vow to only be a dictator on 'day one' follows growing worry over his authoritarian rhetoric

Donald Trump's assertion that he would only be a dictator on “day one” of a second term comes as he is facing growing scrutiny over his increasingly authoritarian and violent rhetoric

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/trumps-vow-dictator-day-growing-worry-authoritarian-rhetoric-105483153

 

And apparently, most of the Republican Party - not to mention gullible, useful fools such as yourself -  are willing to facilitate him.  They are fascists.  Democracy and the constitution be damned.

Orwell warned us that fascism will come from those who claim to be anti-fascists. Sounds just like the current demonic party.

[homersapien 11,373]

On 12/20/2023 at 9:47 PM, PUB78 said:

 

Orwell warned us that fascism will come from those who claim to be anti-fascists. Sounds just like the current demonic https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/under-the-skin-delves-into-systemic-racism-and-its-toll-on-healthar

Right.

We've got one party who is actually trying to institute the principles of fascism and the other party is openly against, or anti-fascist.

And you claim the real danger is from the latter.  

[PUB78 1,358]

On 12/22/2023 at 12:36 PM, homersapien said:

Right.

We've got one party who is actually trying to institute the principles of fascism and the other party is openly against, or anti-fascist.

And you claim the real danger is from the latter.  

The Demonic party in words only. 
Behind the scenes, they are working furiously to destroy America and implement their control over individual freedoms.

[autigeremt 6,621]

The country is doomed BECAUSE of the duopoly. 

[AUApostle 7,651]

On 12/20/2023 at 8:47 PM, PUB78 said:

 

Orwell warned us that fascism will come from those who claim to be anti-fascists. Sounds just like the current demonic party.

We have a fascist government, but it’s not just from the left.  It’s both sides, working together. 

[homersapien 11,373]

On 12/14/2023 at 12:26 PM, homersapien said:

A democratic republic - one in which our representatives are chosen in a popular election is a form of democracy. 

Curious Nola, why did you think this humorous? 

Is a democratic republic not a form of democracy?

Edited January 6 by homersapien

[auburnatl1 4,914]

On 12/24/2023 at 6:23 PM, PUB78 said:

The Demonic party in words only. 
Behind the scenes, they are working furiously to destroy America and implement their control over individual freedoms.

This is the heart of almost every debate - individual rights (leave me alone) vs overall societal concerns (greater good stuff). Leave me alone works until your neighbor builds a chemical dump in your back yard. Greater good sounds great until you push your values on someone else.

Gun laws, abortion, emissions, cultural norms, ect. Some individual rights strongly impact others. Go too far towards the individual and it’s narcissistic, too far toward greater good and its controlling. Hell you could argue speed limits and the legal drinking age are controlling. 

It’s not an evil plan. It’s a disagreement over balance.

[PUB78 1,358]

I bet Homer and Icky have all these books in their library.

https://wng.org/opinions/look-out-theyre-coming-1704802870?mkt_tok=NzEwLVFSUi0yMDkAAAGQjaBf-htHt6gb_v2D1bIwX2P6z_YHH6DbgsoZyNiPh1CFo36UfCBEqkdsH2pW0IImEivTO5nkgGtqA5VVP8YxdsYMoDtfxviGz9cxcz1vUDsa

[homersapien 11,373]

On 12/24/2023 at 6:23 PM, PUB78 said:

The Demonic party in words only. 
Behind the scenes, they are working furiously to destroy America and implement their control over individual freedoms.

Absolutely mindless partisanship. Demonization without substance. Lazy. 

Edited January 10 by homersapien

[homersapien 11,373]

2 hours ago, PUB78 said:

I bet Homer and Icky have all these books in their library.

https://wng.org/opinions/look-out-theyre-coming-1704802870?mkt_tok=NzEwLVFSUi0yMDkAAAGQjaBf-htHt6gb_v2D1bIwX2P6z_YHH6DbgsoZyNiPh1CFo36UfCBEqkdsH2pW0IImEivTO5nkgGtqA5VVP8YxdsYMoDtfxviGz9cxcz1vUDsa

You should try books and libraries.  And lose the propaganda rags.

Edited January 10 by homersapien

[PUB78 1,358]

22 hours ago, homersapien said:

You should try books and libraries.  And lose the propaganda rags.

Homer,

How many of these are you guilty of doing?

[homersapien 11,373]

What the hell does that have to do with reading books?

Total non sequitur.

[arein0 956]

13 minutes ago, homersapien said:

What the hell does that have to do with reading books?

Total non sequitur.

He just wanted to show you more of his propaganda 

[homersapien 11,373]

Regarding the title of this thread, here's an example of how MAGA Republican cultists are controlling even the (few) principled members of the party:

Jan. 6 ‘hostage’ comments fuel House GOP divisions in tough election year

Now members of Republican leadership are echoing conspiracy theorists and the ex-president’s rhetoric

Just before 2 p.m. Wednesday, the campaign of Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) blasted out a fundraising appeal from Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), a member of House Republican leadership focused on electing more GOP women.

Stefanik has refashioned herself from a studious conservative with policy chops into a right-wing sound-bite machine, helping her raise money for endangered incumbents like Kiggans.

But a few minutes after 2 p.m., Kiggans found herself on the other side of Stefanik’s fire-breathing rhetoric. Did the first-term lawmaker agree with the No. 4 GOP leader’s characterization of those arrested for actions during the 2021 Capitol attack as political “hostages”?

“Not my not my choice of words, but to each his own,” Kiggans said, hustling away. “It’s not what I describe them as, no.”

Like so many other Republicans, Stefanik has fully embraced the rhetorical tones of former president Donald Trump, who recently adopted the “hostage” description for those arrested for the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.

“I don’t call them prisoners. I call them hostages. They’re hostages,” he said at a New Hampshire rally last month. He repeated that refrain again in Iowa on Saturday, the third anniversary of the Trump-inspired attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

So when Stefanik appeared Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” host Kristen Welker asked if she thought those “who stormed the Capitol should be held responsible” for those crimes.

“I have concerns about the treatment of January 6 hostages. I have concerns,” Stefanik said.

How the GOP’s rewriting of Jan. 6 paved the way for Trump’s comeback

Republicans like Kiggans, whose coastal district favored President Biden by 2 points in 2020 and will help determine the House majority come November, recoil at those type of comments.

For months they have deflected any questions about Trump by saying they’re keeping their heads down and working hard in their districts and not paying much attention to the presidential race. (Indeed, Kiggans reiterated Wednesday her plans to not endorse in the GOP presidential primaries.)

They have had to occasionally dodge comments from far-right, rank-and-file Republicans uttering similar falsehoods, usually an easier thing to do because these GOP antagonists have low profiles.

But now a member of party leadership has embraced Trump’s line of attack, opening up vulnerable Republicans to questions about where their political support is coming from. Just Tuesday, Stefanik’s political team boasted of raising more than $5 million last quarter — a sum driven by the type of small-dollar donors that most conservatives cannot reach.

And don’t look to other top leaders for clarity on the House GOP’s position on the actions of Jan. 6 rioters, who injured more than 140 police officers — some severely — in taking up Trump’s bogus claim that he actually won in 2020.

“You know, I think, anyone who committed criminal trespassing, anyone who violated the law should absolutely be prosecuted. Period. End of story,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said Wednesday.

But a second later, he kept going. Emmer took up the cause of blaming then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for not calling in the National Guard ahead of the joint session of Congress.

“I just think they are questions that haven’t been answered,” said Emmer, who spent 2019 through 2022 as the party’s campaign chief trying to help candidates navigate Trump’s political storms. (In reality, other congressional security officials rebuffed a request from Capitol Police two days ahead of time to put nearby Guard units on standby.)

As for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), he found time Tuesday to put out a statement in support of National Law Enforcement Day, while commemorating the swearing-in Monday of Louisiana’s new governor. And his social media feed late last week was on full blast about his trip to the southern border to highlight the growing migrant crisis there.

On Saturday, the anniversary of the Capitol attack, his only public comments came in a letter to Biden formally inviting him to deliver his State of the Union address in March. He did not commemorate the anniversary in any public manner.

In an interview taped late last week, airing Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Johnson briefly faced questions about his role in leading an amicus brief in support of a Texas lawsuit in late 2020 trying to invalidate the presidential election results in four states for allegedly improperly handling voting rules during the pandemic.

In explaining his legal argument, Johnson never fully stated that Biden rightfully won in 2020 — just that he is, in fact, now the president.

“President Biden was certified as the winner of the election, he took the oath of office, he’s been the president for three years,” Johnson told host Margaret Brennan.

All of this non-leadership has left Republicans in tough swing districts on a political island. They hope that the issue matrix in the late 2022 midterm — in which abortion rights joined with upholding democracy in a way that helped Democrats — doesn’t return in late 2024.

It helped Democrats win an additional Senate seat and mitigated their losses in the House to such a narrow edge for Republicans that the chamber has been rendered to chaos, despite polling showing a large GOP advantage on economic issues.

But Trump, along with his acolytes in Congress, seem determined to continue forcing these 2020 issues front and center, despite the political risk.

“Some people call them prisoners. I call them hostages,” Trump said Saturday in Iowa. “Release the J6 hostages, Joe. Release them, Joe. You can do it real easy, Joe.”

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), whose district favored Biden by 6 points in 2020, finds such statements an abomination. He has learned to carve out his own identity in winning four terms all during the Trump era.

“They’re criminal defendants, not hostages,” Fitzpatrick said Wednesday, declining to directly criticize Stefanik, Trump or others who embrace those claims.

“They have a case file number. They’re assigned to a prison. They have counsel on their own. If they can’t afford one, one is provided to them. This is the criminal justice system that I spent my whole life in,” the former FBI agent and federal prosecutor said. “I spent my whole life in the system, okay? We don’t have hostages in the United States of America, we have criminal defendants.”

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a retired brigadier general in the Air Force, had a sharper critique: “I don’t defend people who hit cops, who vandalized our Capitol.”

“I think it’s a mistake,” Bacon, whose district favored Biden by 6 percentage points, said of Stefanik’s “hostage” comment. “I think they’re playing to a certain segment of our base. But the broad, broad electorate doesn’t like it.”

Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), who hails from safe GOP terrain but is aligned with more traditional Republicans, said too many lawmakers in Washington will change their “glide scope on what your own personal ambitions are or could be.”

That served as an not-so-veiled assertion of Stefanik’s reported hope to rise into a Trump administration, perhaps even as vice-presidential nominee.

Womack noted some of his own constituents are now serving prison terms for their actions during the Capitol attack. He has no tolerance for people who think they are hostages or should be pardoned.

“They did what they did. It was foolish on their part. It was a gross violation of the law,” he said. “They’ve been through the criminal justice system. They’ve had due process. They’re not political prisoners — simply not political prisoners.”

In her closing message in the email on behalf of Kiggans, Stefanik asked for “any amount” of donations. “Your donation could make the difference between victory or defeat,” she wrote.

And GOP leaders’ words such as “hostages” from an insurrection make that effort more difficult for these lawmakers.

 

By Paul Kane

[homersapien 11,373]

21 hours ago, arein0 said:

He just wanted to show you more of his propaganda 

  Totally brainwashed cultist.

[homersapien 11,373]

On 12/10/2023 at 3:29 PM, auburnatl1 said:

Stop feeding the crazy raw meat - AOC and other extreme leftists. In trying to achieve a socialist, massive government over reach utopia - the dems are about to lose everything. Again - moderate. Quick.

Can you be more specific in that accusation? 

Exactly what piece of legislation passed since Biden's election is representative of that hyperbolic claim?

Edited February 1 by homersapien

[Elephant Tipper 430]

On 12/7/2023 at 11:47 AM, homersapien said:

Will I've never cared for Liz Cheny's political views, I respect the hell out of her.  This country needs more true, constitution believing conservative like her, as the following piece illustrates.  (emphasis mine)

Liz Cheney reminds us of the stakes

No wonder MAGA Republicans hate Liz Cheney. No Republican is as articulate, persuasive and passionate as the former Wyoming congresswoman in describing the threat four-time-indicted former president Donald Trump and her own party as currently constituted pose to the future of American democracy and international security.

Her new book “Oath and Honor” has plenty of bombshells — the congressman who derided Trump as “orange Jesus”; Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s pathetic excuse that he had to visit Trump at Mar-a-Lago because the former president was depressed and not eating. But the jaw-dropping tidbits should not distract from her overarching message, one that Republicans and the media alike need to embrace.

In her characteristically blunt, unvarnished way, she told CBS’s John Dickerson in an interview aired Sunday: “He’s told us what he will do. It’s very easy to see the steps that he will take. … People who say ‘Well, if he’s elected, it’s not that dangerous because we have all of these checks and balances’ don’t fully understand the extent to which the Republicans in Congress today have been co-opted.” She stressed, “One of the things that we see happening today is a sort of a sleepwalking into dictatorship in the United States.”

Without citing No Labels directly, she cautioned that in facing an existential crisis, we cannot have “a situation where the election that might be thrown into the House of Representatives is overseen by a Republican majority.” (No Labels has let on that throwing the election to the House rather than achieving an outright victory for its candidate might be its desired scheme.)

Moreover, she made no bones about the unfitness of her own party to hold power in Congress. “If you look at what Donald Trump is trying to do, he can’t do it by himself. He has to have collaborators,” she said. “And the story of [House Speaker] Mike Johnson is a story of a collaborator and of someone who knew then — and knows now — that what he’s doing and saying is wrong, but he’s willing to do it in an effort to please Donald Trump. And that’s what makes it dangerous.”

Asked directly whether we would be better off with a Democratic House majority, she did not mince words. “I believe very strongly in those principles and ideals that have defined the Republican Party, but the Republican Party of today has made a choice and they haven’t chosen the Constitution,” she said. “And so I do think it presents a threat if the Republicans are in the majority in January 2025.”

In a subsequent interview with Rachel Maddow, Cheney added another caution. Trump “would take those people who are the most radical, the most dangerous, who had the proposals that were the most dangerous, and he will put them in positions of supreme power,” she said. “That’s a risk that we simply can’t take.” In a second term, the sort of adults in the room from the first term would be absent, removing any restraints he might have previously had.

Her remarkable interviews and ongoing campaign to prevent the United States from “sleepwalking into dictatorship” should be a wake-up call to the remaining anti-MAGA Republican still deluding themselves that a second Trump term wouldn’t be all that bad. (As she told Maddow, “When you have a president who is willing to go to war with the rule of law, to ignore the rulings of the courts if he doesn’t agree with them, that has the potential to unravel everything.”)

Though Cheney does not carry weight with Trump’s hardcore base, her message might resonate with “soft” Republicans, independents and even left-wing Democrats in a snit about President Biden’s handling of the Israel-Gaza war and who vow not to support Biden.

How she will make her case in 2024 remains to be seen. Though she has not ruled out a third-party run, she might carry far more weight if she and pro-democracy Republicans such as Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah and former congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois endorse Biden and warn voters against enabling Trump by voting for one of the other candidates. As we learned in 2020, it is important to set up a “permission structures” that encourage Republicans to put fidelity to the Constitution and democracy above partisanship.

Cheney can also play another critical role: keeping the media focused on “not the odds, but the stakes” as media critic Jay Rosen put it. It has not been easy to get mainstream media to emphasize the stakes — the survival of our democracy — rather the horserace and premature, meaningless polls. Fortunately, mainstream outlets have started paying greater attention to Trump’s fascist vision, totalitarian plans, intention to destroy NATO and plans to turn the executive branch into his personal, partisan weapon.

It is not enough to run a story once every month or so. Unless the campaign is covered as a battle between democracy and authoritarianism, the real threat Trump poses will be concealed. Given Cheney’s extraordinary communications skills and ratings draw, her constant presence in print, online and TV coverage — and her willingness to dismiss efforts to normalize Trump and to assign Biden artificial demerits — might prove invaluable.

Cheney, long an ardent critic of Democrats, can provide one more service. After years of criticizing Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Democrats, she worked with them on the Jan. 6 committee, attesting to Pelosi’s willingness to put aside past barbs and Cheney’s fellow committee members’ fidelity to the Constitution. Cheney is a valuable character witness to debunk the demonization of Democrats that has driven Republicans to favor the grotesquely unfit Trump over a center-left, competent Democratic president.

No single voice can determine the outcome of the election. But few have as powerful or effective a voice as Cheney. If she wields her influence adroitly, she will earn her share of the credit for beating back the most serious threat to democracy in our history.

Opinion by Jennifer Rubin

Gomer, you and LC are such drama queens.  Our Republic hasn't been under direct threat except during the War of 1812 and WW2.  Well, maybe there's a one mile wide asteroid floating around with our name on it.  That might do it.

LC is just pissed that DJT bitch-slapped her father because he led America into an unwarranted war with Iraq so now she's venting, kind of like you.  Trump woke Americans to the fact that we keep being dragged into war by the same people over and over.  LC would be happy to continue that tradition, along with Brandon.

You should get outside more often and breathe fresh air.  It'll do your mind some good.  Remember, breathe in the good air, exhale the bad.  It's not the other way, you know.

[Elephant Tipper 430]

On 12/11/2023 at 6:52 PM, E'Town4Bama said:

After reading a lot of this, are we a democracy or a republic? I guess that has been a question for the last 50 years...................................

"Mr. Franklin, what form of government do we have ?"  

"A Republic, if you can keep it."

[homersapien 11,373]

On 2/20/2024 at 10:47 AM, Elephant Tipper said:

Gomer, you and LC are such drama queens.  Our Republic hasn't been under direct threat except during the War of 1812 and WW2.  Well, maybe there's a one mile wide asteroid floating around with our name on it.  That might do it.

LC is just pissed that DJT bitch-slapped her father because he led America into an unwarranted war with Iraq so now she's venting, kind of like you.  Trump woke Americans to the fact that we keep being dragged into war by the same people over and over.  LC would be happy to continue that tradition, along with Brandon.

You should get outside more often and breathe fresh air.  It'll do your mind some good.  Remember, breathe in the good air, exhale the bad.  It's not the other way, you know.

Lot of fools on this forum.

 

[Elephant Tipper 430]

20 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Lot of fools on this forum.

 

Tag, you're IT.