5 ms·

Republicans can only remain in power if people continue to vote them into office... so there has to be some pretense or the will of the people will cease to sup

Republicans can only remain in power if people continue to vote them into office... so there has to be some pretense or the will of the people will cease to support them. Any party is only as effective as the numbers of people they have in office.

cloudsinthesky 8y ago
> Republicans can only remain in power if people continue to vote them into office That's not true. People voted them out in 2016 but their votes were not counted, or their registrations were falsely and illegally cancelled, etc. There is a lot more at play here than people's choices; and given that people's ability to choose with correct information and free will has been significantly hampered by Republican-led efforts to reduce the quantity of real factual information in the hands of voters, replaced with lies designed to steal votes. Now I know that Donald Trump lies a lot, like a lot but sometimes he tells the truth. He has stated at least 5 times that neither he nor his supporters would accept any election results where he did not win. The current President threatens the nation regularly with his active plans to cancel the next elections and stay in power. Be careful assuming that the popularity of politicians or their party has anything at all to do with them being in power. It doesn't.
- balabaster 8y ago
  Um... isn't the constitution designed to prevent shit like this happening? I have no special interest in American politics as I just watch from the other side of the border, but I'm pretty sure my understanding of the political system down there is full enough that I'm right in saying that a sitting president can't legally follow through on threats like that without getting evicted from office. Aren't there failsafes and backup plans and laws and a justice department to prevent presidential overreach? This is the whole purpose of the three branches of government.
  - toyg 8y ago
    Paraphrasing a certain mustachioed totalitarian, how many federal agents does the Constitution command? Is the Constitution going to personally storm the White House? Even if it did, what would happen if there were resistance at the other end?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - hannasanarion 8y ago
    Just because the constitution was intended to have certain properties, doesn't mean that it actually does. For example, the chief architects of the Constitution, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, tried several times to eliminate the Electoral College with amendments once they saw how it behaved. They wrote extensively about how their intention had been subverted and the language they chose was a mistake, but other politicians rebuffed their efforts to fix the mistake, and decided instead to exploit it: presidential candidates can ignore most of the voters.
bduerst 8y ago
- Not if they can cling to power through gerrymandering: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/29/us/politics/north-carolina-gerrymandering.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/29/us/politics/n... - Not if they can strip the powers of positions that they have lost: https://www.apnews.com/62c976c13a574fa7a8cbb2aa4de425da https://www.apnews.com/62c976c13a574fa7a8cbb2aa4de425da - Not if they have a propaganda media outlet that misinforms voters: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/03/11/the-making-of-the-fox-news-white-house https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/03/11/the-making-of-... The cronysm and party-before-country behavior of the republican party is a threat to the democracy of the nation.
- balabaster 8y ago
  How do the American people put up with this nonsense? Don't give me "we don't have the power to do anything about it." You are the very people that rose up and threw off British rule with the single most devastating civil war on the planet, perhaps barring only the French Revolution. You have the power to do anything. Edit: Flagged? :D Oh come now, I'm not inciting violence, I'm merely suggesting that people shouldn't put up with the political status quo and make excuses just because they think "that's just the way it is." You need to get out and vote and do whatever you can to ensure your ability to participate in your democracy.
- ctlby 8y ago
  Do you genuinely believe these things explain >1% of Republican electoral success? If so, can you explain your thinking?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - hannasanarion 8y ago
    North Carolina is gerrymandered so that Republicans reliably win 77% of the seats despite getting only 49% of the votes, that's 2% of the House of Representatives right there.

cloudsinthesky 8y ago

> Republicans can only remain in power if people continue to vote them into office That's not true. People voted them out in 2016 but their votes were not counted, or their registrations were falsely and illegally cancelled, etc. There is a lot more at play here than people's choices; and given that people's ability to choose with correct information and free will has been significantly hampered by Republican-led efforts to reduce the quantity of real factual information in the hands of voters, replaced with lies designed to steal votes. Now I know that Donald Trump lies a lot, like a lot but sometimes he tells the truth. He has stated at least 5 times that neither he nor his supporters would accept any election results where he did not win. The current President threatens the nation regularly with his active plans to cancel the next elections and stay in power. Be careful assuming that the popularity of politicians or their party has anything at all to do with them being in power. It doesn't.

balabaster 8y ago
Um... isn't the constitution designed to prevent shit like this happening? I have no special interest in American politics as I just watch from the other side of the border, but I'm pretty sure my understanding of the political system down there is full enough that I'm right in saying that a sitting president can't legally follow through on threats like that without getting evicted from office. Aren't there failsafes and backup plans and laws and a justice department to prevent presidential overreach? This is the whole purpose of the three branches of government.
- toyg 8y ago
  Paraphrasing a certain mustachioed totalitarian, how many federal agents does the Constitution command? Is the Constitution going to personally storm the White House? Even if it did, what would happen if there were resistance at the other end?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- hannasanarion 8y ago
  Just because the constitution was intended to have certain properties, doesn't mean that it actually does. For example, the chief architects of the Constitution, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, tried several times to eliminate the Electoral College with amendments once they saw how it behaved. They wrote extensively about how their intention had been subverted and the language they chose was a mistake, but other politicians rebuffed their efforts to fix the mistake, and decided instead to exploit it: presidential candidates can ignore most of the voters.

bduerst 8y ago

- Not if they can cling to power through gerrymandering: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/29/us/politics/north-carolina-gerrymandering.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/29/us/politics/n... - Not if they can strip the powers of positions that they have lost: https://www.apnews.com/62c976c13a574fa7a8cbb2aa4de425da https://www.apnews.com/62c976c13a574fa7a8cbb2aa4de425da - Not if they have a propaganda media outlet that misinforms voters: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/03/11/the-making-of-the-fox-news-white-house https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/03/11/the-making-of-... The cronysm and party-before-country behavior of the republican party is a threat to the democracy of the nation.

balabaster 8y ago
How do the American people put up with this nonsense? Don't give me "we don't have the power to do anything about it." You are the very people that rose up and threw off British rule with the single most devastating civil war on the planet, perhaps barring only the French Revolution. You have the power to do anything. Edit: Flagged? :D Oh come now, I'm not inciting violence, I'm merely suggesting that people shouldn't put up with the political status quo and make excuses just because they think "that's just the way it is." You need to get out and vote and do whatever you can to ensure your ability to participate in your democracy.
ctlby 8y ago
Do you genuinely believe these things explain >1% of Republican electoral success? If so, can you explain your thinking?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- hannasanarion 8y ago
  North Carolina is gerrymandered so that Republicans reliably win 77% of the seats despite getting only 49% of the votes, that's 2% of the House of Representatives right there.