I’m working on a long, involved blog post relating to this video and the playlist of which it is a part, but I think it’s important for people to watch this by itself. This is particularly aimed at people in the United States, or those interested in what’s happening there, but I think it’s worth paying attention to for everyone else as well, because it’s relevant to the dynamics of government and power in any society. Watch the video, and if you can, please support the work of this channel.
Thanks, that’s an interesting video.
It is worth mentioning that one of the reasons the fascists were able to come to power in Germany was because the constitution of the Weimar Republic had insufficient safeguards against too much power coming into the hands of too few people. The modern constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany is much stronger in this respect.
My concern is, that the checks on executive power in the United States are insufficient and this leaves the door open to dictatorship.
I wonder what the views are of US Americans on how this apparent deficit could be addressed?
Great video. Watched. Grim reality. Fascism indeed. Thanks for this Abe.
Complacancy and defeatism need to be overcome. Americans need to turn out and vote in overwhelming numbers and beat Trump in an absolute landslide.
Even then the risk of Civil War being sparked by Trump and his kult* followers seems dangerously high to this Aussie observer.( Y’all know your country has a huge influence on mine & esp in foreign policy right?)
Its 100 days or so and counting. An awful lot of potentiaslly awful things and possible scenarios can still happen. A lot of work still needs doing. Please choose and act and vote wisely. Please.
* Spelling deliberate for once.
Even then the risk of Civil War being sparked by Trump and his kult* followers seems dangerously high to this Aussie observer.
What the “civil war” crowd lack is a political framework. In our last civil war, the southern states seceeded and created all the structure of a political entity that could take to the battlefield. I don’t see that happening, here. The republican party might decide – about half of it – to go “all in” and cheat and do whatever it takes to steal the election, but they are not anywhere near as unified as the political leaders of the southern states and, also, they don’t have any separate geography to fall back upon.
We might get some insurgents and violence but I suspect that they’ll be rounded up pretty quickly. For that matter, if the republicans go too far overboard with election-stealing, that could happen to them, as well – we are talking lots and lots of felonies and that’s enough to take people off the board long enough to die of old age. I don’t think that manipulative worms like McConnell will ever have the necessary courage to start an insurgency, or they would have tried long ago.
@mailliw
It all comes down to Congress at this point. There’s no situation where the president can just assume total power without being enabled in some way. If the GOP retains control of the Senate and gains control of both houses, then Trump can be a de facto dictator, without being an OFFICIAL dictator – because the people who are supposed to restrain him refuse to do so. I think that’s more likely than a Hitler scenario anyway, because it gives the oligarchs a bit more control, and leaves a failsafe in case a Democrat somehow gets power again.
The Supreme Court can, in theory, provide a check on the President, but I don’t know how far that goes, and I don’t know how likely the current court is to do much. If Trump gets to appoint another judge, it’s likely they won’t do anything to get in his way.
The GOP’s goal seems to be to gain sufficient control over the existing electoral structures to prevent legitimate elections from taking place, so they can’t lose control. The goal isn’t one MAN rule, so much as one PARTY rule. Whether it ends up with a Trump dynasty, as some have proposed, or just rotating Republican presidents, is unclear.
It’s also going to depend on what the Pentagon decides to do. What orders they obey, what action they decide to take if they think the president has gone too far, etc. Officially they don’t have the power to do anything regarding the civilian government, but they do have power, and it’s not always clear which way they’ll jump.
If it comes to something like war, don’t know to what degree we’ll see actual US troops attacking US citizens, vs private military contractors/mercenaries. If they were fighting anyone, it would probably be a mix of guerrilla cells, if people manage to form such groups, and/or national guard troops, who are technically under the command of the states. Hopefully we’ll never find out.
Honestly all of it’s pretty hard to predict, but that’s where things seem to be right now from what I can tell. It’s kind of up to the Trump administration and the GOP how far out of hand things get. I think they want chaos until November to help their “law and order/we’ll keep you safe” campaign, but I don’t know at what point that gets out of their control, I don’t know how/if they plan to de-escalate if they win, and I don’t know what they’ll do if they lose.