4 ms·

While the right certainly had their fear based issues before the pandemic, it’s a bit of a stretch to say the left didn’t. Trump was going to become a dictator

• Swenrekcah 5y ago
  European perspective here: Trump was definitely trying to make himself a dictator, just look at how he handled losing an election. Please don’t vote him in again America. Agree on moral panic issues though.
  • hnuser847 5y ago
    He was handed a global pandemic in which it was completely permissible for leaders to take on unprecedented, unlimited emergency powers, and yet he did nothing. He was actually criticized for not using his emergency powers to implement an (unconstitutional) national lockdown. If his true goal was to become a dictator, why did he do nothing when he was given the perfect opportunity?
    • cloutchaser 5y ago
    • the-dude 5y ago
      His European perspective means that it is skewed much much more "liberal" than when in the US. About half the population here thinks he is a literal monster, worthy of a Godwin.
    • Swenrekcah 5y ago
      He made no difference between himself and the state. Used the AG as his personal lawyer. Used his position to secure personal business dealings. And then tried to orchestrate a coup when he lost. He’s not literally the devil but he’s both so incompetent and corrupt that I’m frankly baffled there is such fervent support for him.
  • nradov 5y ago
    If you read American leftist media from late 2020 to January 2021 you'll find a bunch of breathless editorials claiming that Trump was about to declare martial law and assume dictatorial powers. That was obviously nonsense and displayed a complete lack of knowledge about how the US federal government and military work.
    • Kye 5y ago
      It's lack of trust more than a lack of knowledge. See: the submission title. I can see how this perspective seems reasonable if you've never been on the boot-end of unjust laws, but a lot of us over here on the left side of the center have good reason to doubt that the good parts of law and order can hold up against a sufficiently inspiring and intelligent dictator. Trump was a fool and squandered what he had. Someone will run with what he built and fumbled in the same way Obama ran with what Howard Dean built and fumbled. This is actually why I'm wary of calls to abolish the Senate and Supreme Court. They suck when you want to get stuff done, but they also give us time to organize against people who want to install a dictatorship. Our tar pit of a system and people at high levels believing in it was the only thing that stood between Trump and the genocide he'd love to give large parts of his base.
  • syshum 5y ago
    • Swenrekcah 5y ago
      I’m sorry but this is utter nonsense. Clinton conceded right away and notably did not urge her supporters to storm the Capitol to “rectify” the results. And regarding governors, recall that most of the swing states were under republican control. Edit: I noticed now you gave the Russian connection as the example. Russian interference was indeed the case. Many people were angry at that but there’s an important difference between being angry at it and saying the Russians “stole” the election as in “had undue influence”, versus just pretending the result was rigged and you actually won an election you lost. That was something Trump did and it undermines the democracy you build your country on. On the question of collusion the Muller report is quite informing but he explicitly didn’t want to say anything on the matter and left that to Congress.
      • cloutchaser 5y ago
      • syshum 5y ago
        I’m sorry but this is utter nonsense. Clinton is not a populist, she part of the establishment, her method of subversion was and is through the institutions themselves, i.e using the media, and the deep state to do the work not the people. Her power base is not the common man or woman. As to the republican governors, you seem to have confused me with a republican, I am not a supporter of either side of the uniparty coin. I am an actual anti-establishment type, not one that is only anti-establishment when my "tribe" is not in power, or when the "other side" of the uniparty is in power. I am anti-estblishment 24/7, no matter if it is republican or democrat I was no fan of Trump, never voted for him infact (nor Clinton or biden, or obama, or bush, or ....)
        • Swenrekcah 5y ago
          I don’t disagree that Clinton is as establishment as it gets and there were a lot of reasons to not want her in office. I’m just triggered by the false equivalency, because unlikeable elite as she may be, her politics are more like treatable cancer for democracy whereas Trumps is like acute lead poisoning. The reason I mentioned the republican governors wasn’t to suggest you were a member, rather to suggest that if we did think those states performed election fraud then we’d expect it to be in favour of the Republican Party, right? Regardless of all that I hope you have a great weekend :)
• dontcare007 5y ago
  Heck, 20 years ago we had 10 years until climate change killed us all.
  • modo_mario 5y ago
    Media hyperbole aside especially when it comes to US conservative coverage... we still didn't get anywhere close to the measures climate scientists wish we took and we're still chugging onwards with a very slow increase in average temperatures which are in line if not above what was predicted