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> Nothing prevents the next president from having a radically different opinion. Of course, this is only relevant if they are interested in having a 'next' pre

> Nothing prevents the next president from having a radically different opinion. Of course, this is only relevant if they are interested in having a 'next' president, something which it seems a segment of society is less than open to.

arunabha 2y ago
I would like to believe(perhaps naively) that the segment of population which genuinely believes in doing away with democracy is pretty small. However, in case such an event comes to pass, what is far more important is the segment which actively opposes such a power grab. Authoritarians reply on the passiveness of the majority coupled with a small but very vocal and rabid fan base. It's quite possible that a slow and gradual slide in that direction is underway, but the minute even a small faction of people actively oppose that, strongmen tend to find the limits of their power pretty quickly and mostly in ways that are pretty detrimental to their health. The civil rights movement is a pretty good example of the power of a small set of people being enough to have critical mass.
- jjkaczor 2y ago
  It's about 70 million as of the last count in November.
  - Judgmentality 2y ago
    There are some odd patterns in the voting data. I'm not saying this is proof, but it's definitely weird. https://electiontruthalliance.org/clark-county%2C-nv https://electiontruthalliance.org/clark-county%2C-nv https://www.thenumbersarewrong2024.com/across-the-us/swing-states https://www.thenumbersarewrong2024.com/across-the-us/swing-s... Then combine that with all the election interference we know Elon was doing, and previous years of being concerned about the security of voting machines. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crlnjzzk919o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crlnjzzk919o https://apnews.com/article/election-security-voting-machines-software-2024-80a23479d8a767ba9333b2324c4e424b https://apnews.com/article/election-security-voting-machines... There are reasons to think the votes may have been tampered with. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42994293 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42994293 This was previously discussed on HN before getting flagged like most political topics.
    - RajT88 2y ago
      Proving it will be hard now - I'm certain if there was election interference, that evidence is all gone now. For my money though, I find it hard to imagine that something this widespread across so many states was executed without any whistleblowers. The list of equipment is long: https://verifiedvoting.org/equipmentdb/ https://verifiedvoting.org/equipmentdb/ I guess if someone comes up and shows these same discrepancies everywhere where a particular manufacturer had a footprint, I'd probably be more on board with screaming election interference.
      - Judgmentality 2y ago
        > I guess if someone comes up and shows these same discrepancies everywhere where a particular manufacturer had a footprint, I'd probably be more on board with screaming election interference. The fact this anomaly only happens in swing states under commonly identified conditions for foreign elections with widely accepted interference isn't suspicious enough? You can recreate the Russian tail yourself with the available data. A commenter in the HN thread I linked even posts the code to do so. I feel like suspicious voting patterns should be investigated, not that I have any belief that will happen. We already have proof of a consistent statistical anomaly.
        RajT88 2y ago
        We definitely should investigate. No argument there. It just won't make a difference. At this point, they have gotten away with it, and the opposition did not put up a fight. They are not all of a sudden going to start putting up a fight, when there's no way they win that fight. (But realistically: they are bad at putting up fights over things in the first place, which is how we ended up here - the party with no moral qualms about much of anything ran roughshod over them)
        Judgmentality 2y ago
        I agree with you it's likely pointless. I'm not arguing that "this information will change the election." That said, I do care about election integrity and the more evidence we have of fraud the more we can (theoretically) correct for it in the future. I'm very much of the opinion there's going to be a violent civil war before the decade is over.
- rchaud 2y ago
  The civil rights movement would not have succeeded without the confluence of growing anti-government sentiment and protests around the Vietnam War, and fears about the spread of communist influence in the US. This forced American leaders to give 15% of their population basic human rights denied to them under Jim Crow laws.
shostack 2y ago
Trump has explicitly said it's the last time people will have to vote. I don't know why people are glossing over this. He intends to take full control and never give it up. The time to act is now, not when he announces some emergency that is a thin excuse to cancel elections.
- bagels 2y ago
  "He didn't really mean it" isn't really playing out so well.
bagels 2y ago
There is no next legitimately elected president. They are going to disenfranchise us.
- daveguy 2y ago
  Not if we speak the fuck up.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
I'm still betting Trump does not survive his natural term. (and I'm not even implying anything. He's turning 79 this year and clearly not in top mental nor physical health).

arunabha 2y ago

I would like to believe(perhaps naively) that the segment of population which genuinely believes in doing away with democracy is pretty small. However, in case such an event comes to pass, what is far more important is the segment which actively opposes such a power grab. Authoritarians reply on the passiveness of the majority coupled with a small but very vocal and rabid fan base. It's quite possible that a slow and gradual slide in that direction is underway, but the minute even a small faction of people actively oppose that, strongmen tend to find the limits of their power pretty quickly and mostly in ways that are pretty detrimental to their health. The civil rights movement is a pretty good example of the power of a small set of people being enough to have critical mass.

jjkaczor 2y ago
It's about 70 million as of the last count in November.
- Judgmentality 2y ago
  There are some odd patterns in the voting data. I'm not saying this is proof, but it's definitely weird. https://electiontruthalliance.org/clark-county%2C-nv https://electiontruthalliance.org/clark-county%2C-nv https://www.thenumbersarewrong2024.com/across-the-us/swing-states https://www.thenumbersarewrong2024.com/across-the-us/swing-s... Then combine that with all the election interference we know Elon was doing, and previous years of being concerned about the security of voting machines. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crlnjzzk919o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crlnjzzk919o https://apnews.com/article/election-security-voting-machines-software-2024-80a23479d8a767ba9333b2324c4e424b https://apnews.com/article/election-security-voting-machines... There are reasons to think the votes may have been tampered with. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42994293 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42994293 This was previously discussed on HN before getting flagged like most political topics.
  - RajT88 2y ago
    Proving it will be hard now - I'm certain if there was election interference, that evidence is all gone now. For my money though, I find it hard to imagine that something this widespread across so many states was executed without any whistleblowers. The list of equipment is long: https://verifiedvoting.org/equipmentdb/ https://verifiedvoting.org/equipmentdb/ I guess if someone comes up and shows these same discrepancies everywhere where a particular manufacturer had a footprint, I'd probably be more on board with screaming election interference.
    - Judgmentality 2y ago
      > I guess if someone comes up and shows these same discrepancies everywhere where a particular manufacturer had a footprint, I'd probably be more on board with screaming election interference. The fact this anomaly only happens in swing states under commonly identified conditions for foreign elections with widely accepted interference isn't suspicious enough? You can recreate the Russian tail yourself with the available data. A commenter in the HN thread I linked even posts the code to do so. I feel like suspicious voting patterns should be investigated, not that I have any belief that will happen. We already have proof of a consistent statistical anomaly.
      - RajT88 2y ago
        We definitely should investigate. No argument there. It just won't make a difference. At this point, they have gotten away with it, and the opposition did not put up a fight. They are not all of a sudden going to start putting up a fight, when there's no way they win that fight. (But realistically: they are bad at putting up fights over things in the first place, which is how we ended up here - the party with no moral qualms about much of anything ran roughshod over them)
        Judgmentality 2y ago
        I agree with you it's likely pointless. I'm not arguing that "this information will change the election." That said, I do care about election integrity and the more evidence we have of fraud the more we can (theoretically) correct for it in the future. I'm very much of the opinion there's going to be a violent civil war before the decade is over.
rchaud 2y ago
The civil rights movement would not have succeeded without the confluence of growing anti-government sentiment and protests around the Vietnam War, and fears about the spread of communist influence in the US. This forced American leaders to give 15% of their population basic human rights denied to them under Jim Crow laws.

shostack 2y ago

Trump has explicitly said it's the last time people will have to vote. I don't know why people are glossing over this. He intends to take full control and never give it up. The time to act is now, not when he announces some emergency that is a thin excuse to cancel elections.

bagels 2y ago
"He didn't really mean it" isn't really playing out so well.

bagels 2y ago

There is no next legitimately elected president. They are going to disenfranchise us.

daveguy 2y ago
Not if we speak the fuck up.

johnnyanmac 2y ago

I'm still betting Trump does not survive his natural term. (and I'm not even implying anything. He's turning 79 this year and clearly not in top mental nor physical health).