5 ms·

So, destabilized democracies seems to be the theme of the early 21st century: the UK (Brexit), the US (twice) and now rumbles from Germany. Great

pc86 2y ago
What is unstable about the US?
- nilsherzig 2y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Trump's followers raid the capitol last time (with his approval)? Seems unstable from the outside
  - stickfigure 2y ago
    One of them was shot and more than 600 were sent to prison. Seems stable enough to me.
    - gmueckl 2y ago
      Stable democracies hand over to new governments without bloodshed. Any amount of violence in the process is too much to count as stable.
      - pc86 2y ago
        Stable democracies can preserve themselves even against undue influence. Even if you think Jan 6 was a carefully calculated and orchestrated attempt at a "kill the elected leaders and install sycophants in their place" style coup d'état - or perhaps especially if you think that - the result proved the US's stability.
    - itslennysfault 2y ago
      Pretty safe bet those in prison will be pardoned, and I wouldn't be shocked if the dead traitor got a posthumous medal.
    - p2detar 2y ago
      How about send to prison the main culprit behind it? > Starting at 11:58, from behind a bulletproof shield, President Trump gave a speech, declaring that he would "never concede" the election, criticizing the media, and calling for Pence to overturn the election results. Just reading about the whole thing again on Wikipedia is appalling beyond belief. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capitol_attack#Trump_supporters_gather_in_D.C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capito....
  - klipklop 2y ago
    At no point did those Jan6 people have the ability to actually overthrow the US government. Let's not exaggerate their ability to take over all US armed forces and government operations. Jan6 was more a barnacle on the leviathan that is the US government.
    - macintux 2y ago
      They absolutely had the opportunity to give the president an excuse to stay in power. “The electoral ballots have been compromised, Congress is in disarray with its leadership killed. I’m staying in office for the duration of this emergency, and the states will decide on a process to select new electors, or the House of Representatives will elect the next president per its Constitutional authority.”
      - ahartmetz 2y ago
        ...or just permanent state of emergency, and voila. Very common way to do the democracy to dictatorship transition. "Many such cases"
      - ywvcbk 2y ago
        Virginia and Maryland were on the brink of invading DC (had the government continued to resist deploying the National Guard and the riot got even more out of hand) with all the bizarre consequences of that… To be fair it’s not like the mob was that determined and capable to actually murder Pence etc. (at least there weren’t any clear signs of it). They scattered immediately after the first guns were fired (I mean those close enough to witness it). So more people might have died but it would have primarily been the rioters rather than anyone else..
    - sanktanglia 2y ago
      January 6th was an excuse for pence to not certify so in the fight for certification it would be thrown to the supreme Court that trump owns
- jltsiren 2y ago
  In a stable democracy, whenever there are elections, the losers accept that the elections were fair and they lost. If there are reasons to believe that the elections were not fair, or if the losers refuse to admit that the elections were fair and they lost, the system is unstable. Peaceful transition of power is the most important factor in the long-term stability of any system of governance. Whenever a leader loses legitimacy or dies, there must be a process to select a successor. If the outcome of the process is contested, the system is at a high risk of collapsing in the power struggles of its elites. It's far more common for a state to fail due to internal power struggles than external threats.
  - pc86 2y ago
    He left office. He wasn't kicked out (other than the election of course), it's not like Secret Service had to drag him out of the Oval. He left. He also went through the whole process again and we know how that turned out. To imply that the US is an "unstable democracy" is laughable.
    - jltsiren 2y ago
      The US was already unstable in 2000. Once courts get involved in determining the outcome of elections, it's a sure sign that the system is no longer functioning properly. Instability does not mean that a collapse is imminent. It means that further shocks may cause a collapse more easily than in a stable system. It makes a collapse more likely in the long term, which in this context means something like a human lifetime.
    - illiac786 2y ago
      Let’s see if we still laugh in a couple of years…
nosianu 2y ago
This is not destabilizing this democracy. The FDP has done that same thing before - twice! In 1966 and 1982. Abandoning a non-functioning government and calling new elections is part of democracies. Just ask the Italians (68 governments in 76 years), or recently the French and the Brits.
- gmueckl 2y ago
  The problem is that the far right is ready to exploit that situation with their broken populist rhetoric and look to gain massively from it. Currently, they are the second biggest faction behind the conservatives in the polls. All the moderate parties have so little support that the only coalition government options are the ones that couldn't stop this growing trend of disillusionment and protest voting in the past.
- throw310822 2y ago
  > Just ask the Italians (68 governments in 76 years) When each and every government is non-functioning, I'd say that democracy is already destabilised or broken.
- itslennysfault 2y ago
  I wish the US democracy had this feature. We have to just suffer through it for 4 years.
  - mango7283 2y ago
    You have midterms for the Congress though?! That's ever 2 years and actually very frequent for a legislature
    - itslennysfault 2y ago
      Only for the house. Senate is every 6 years. The point though is that we don't have a good mechanism to remove a government that isn't meeting expectations. Impeachment exists, but it is very difficult and has never succeeded at removing a sitting president.

pc86 2y ago

What is unstable about the US?

nilsherzig 2y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Trump's followers raid the capitol last time (with his approval)? Seems unstable from the outside
- stickfigure 2y ago
  One of them was shot and more than 600 were sent to prison. Seems stable enough to me.
  - gmueckl 2y ago
    Stable democracies hand over to new governments without bloodshed. Any amount of violence in the process is too much to count as stable.
    - pc86 2y ago
      Stable democracies can preserve themselves even against undue influence. Even if you think Jan 6 was a carefully calculated and orchestrated attempt at a "kill the elected leaders and install sycophants in their place" style coup d'état - or perhaps especially if you think that - the result proved the US's stability.
  - itslennysfault 2y ago
    Pretty safe bet those in prison will be pardoned, and I wouldn't be shocked if the dead traitor got a posthumous medal.
  - p2detar 2y ago
    How about send to prison the main culprit behind it? > Starting at 11:58, from behind a bulletproof shield, President Trump gave a speech, declaring that he would "never concede" the election, criticizing the media, and calling for Pence to overturn the election results. Just reading about the whole thing again on Wikipedia is appalling beyond belief. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capitol_attack#Trump_supporters_gather_in_D.C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capito....
- klipklop 2y ago
  At no point did those Jan6 people have the ability to actually overthrow the US government. Let's not exaggerate their ability to take over all US armed forces and government operations. Jan6 was more a barnacle on the leviathan that is the US government.
  - macintux 2y ago
    They absolutely had the opportunity to give the president an excuse to stay in power. “The electoral ballots have been compromised, Congress is in disarray with its leadership killed. I’m staying in office for the duration of this emergency, and the states will decide on a process to select new electors, or the House of Representatives will elect the next president per its Constitutional authority.”
    - ahartmetz 2y ago
      ...or just permanent state of emergency, and voila. Very common way to do the democracy to dictatorship transition. "Many such cases"
    - ywvcbk 2y ago
      Virginia and Maryland were on the brink of invading DC (had the government continued to resist deploying the National Guard and the riot got even more out of hand) with all the bizarre consequences of that… To be fair it’s not like the mob was that determined and capable to actually murder Pence etc. (at least there weren’t any clear signs of it). They scattered immediately after the first guns were fired (I mean those close enough to witness it). So more people might have died but it would have primarily been the rioters rather than anyone else..
  - sanktanglia 2y ago
    January 6th was an excuse for pence to not certify so in the fight for certification it would be thrown to the supreme Court that trump owns
jltsiren 2y ago
In a stable democracy, whenever there are elections, the losers accept that the elections were fair and they lost. If there are reasons to believe that the elections were not fair, or if the losers refuse to admit that the elections were fair and they lost, the system is unstable. Peaceful transition of power is the most important factor in the long-term stability of any system of governance. Whenever a leader loses legitimacy or dies, there must be a process to select a successor. If the outcome of the process is contested, the system is at a high risk of collapsing in the power struggles of its elites. It's far more common for a state to fail due to internal power struggles than external threats.
- pc86 2y ago
  He left office. He wasn't kicked out (other than the election of course), it's not like Secret Service had to drag him out of the Oval. He left. He also went through the whole process again and we know how that turned out. To imply that the US is an "unstable democracy" is laughable.
  - jltsiren 2y ago
    The US was already unstable in 2000. Once courts get involved in determining the outcome of elections, it's a sure sign that the system is no longer functioning properly. Instability does not mean that a collapse is imminent. It means that further shocks may cause a collapse more easily than in a stable system. It makes a collapse more likely in the long term, which in this context means something like a human lifetime.
  - illiac786 2y ago
    Let’s see if we still laugh in a couple of years…

nosianu 2y ago

This is not destabilizing this democracy. The FDP has done that same thing before - twice! In 1966 and 1982. Abandoning a non-functioning government and calling new elections is part of democracies. Just ask the Italians (68 governments in 76 years), or recently the French and the Brits.

gmueckl 2y ago
The problem is that the far right is ready to exploit that situation with their broken populist rhetoric and look to gain massively from it. Currently, they are the second biggest faction behind the conservatives in the polls. All the moderate parties have so little support that the only coalition government options are the ones that couldn't stop this growing trend of disillusionment and protest voting in the past.
throw310822 2y ago
> Just ask the Italians (68 governments in 76 years) When each and every government is non-functioning, I'd say that democracy is already destabilised or broken.
itslennysfault 2y ago
I wish the US democracy had this feature. We have to just suffer through it for 4 years.
- mango7283 2y ago
  You have midterms for the Congress though?! That's ever 2 years and actually very frequent for a legislature
  - itslennysfault 2y ago
    Only for the house. Senate is every 6 years. The point though is that we don't have a good mechanism to remove a government that isn't meeting expectations. Impeachment exists, but it is very difficult and has never succeeded at removing a sitting president.