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I suspect all these things are happening because the Trump government's sheer number of actions makes it impossible to react to or report on everything. Creatin

I suspect all these things are happening because the Trump government's sheer number of actions makes it impossible to react to or report on everything. Creating chaos is the goal, not an accident, and preposterous actions like threatening to annex Canada (or closing access to a shared library) allow the Trump administration to undermine the system in less obvious ways while everybody is paying attention to the flashy stuff. It's also important to remember that democracies are weird in the sense that people who could abuse power voluntarily do not do so. Democratic systems only work because people accept that they work (similar to fiat money). Once people start questioning them, they can fail very quickly (see the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank). Presidential systems are particularly susceptible to this sudden collapse because they start out with a strong concentration of power in one person. After all the recent firings and appointments, so many people in positions of power believe in unconstrained executive action that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Recent Supreme Court decisions related to presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for actions taken while in office bolster this view.

eigenspace 2y ago
You also have to add in the fact that the USA's system of 'checks and balances' via different branches of government constantly blocking eachother from doing anything, and the Electoral College system of assigning votes and enforcing a 2-party system also contribute hugely to anti-democratic sentiment. Americans feel (somewhat rightly) that their democracy isn't responsive enough, and even if it was more responsive, they feel it doesn't represent them. Many of them seem to think the only way to fix this is to have a king. _____ To connect this back to HackerNews relevant discussion, I feel there's a bit of an "innovators dilemma" at play with democracies. The democracies which developed the earliest have some design flaws baked very deeply into their mechanics that later democracies recognized as problems and were able to avoid. But in older democracies, there's too many entrenched interests against fixing these problems so they keep ancient design flaws even when everyone knows they're counterproductive (and in the present case, perhaps even fatal)
- cadamsdotcom 2y ago
  Very much this. There are some design flaws in the US system that are hard to fix - some of which is by design. The other thing that’s sad to see is that slides into substandard leadership have plenty of precedent - strong, well-run countries have many times reverted thanks to incoming leaders being worse at the job. The US has just come off an exceptional run of competent and strong leaders driven by ideals, but eventually your hot streak is going to come to an end. To put it another way, this looks to be a reversion to the mean.
- r00fus 2y ago
  Very much so. France is on v5.2 of their Democracy, while the US is still on v1.27

eigenspace 2y ago

You also have to add in the fact that the USA's system of 'checks and balances' via different branches of government constantly blocking eachother from doing anything, and the Electoral College system of assigning votes and enforcing a 2-party system also contribute hugely to anti-democratic sentiment. Americans feel (somewhat rightly) that their democracy isn't responsive enough, and even if it was more responsive, they feel it doesn't represent them. Many of them seem to think the only way to fix this is to have a king. _____ To connect this back to HackerNews relevant discussion, I feel there's a bit of an "innovators dilemma" at play with democracies. The democracies which developed the earliest have some design flaws baked very deeply into their mechanics that later democracies recognized as problems and were able to avoid. But in older democracies, there's too many entrenched interests against fixing these problems so they keep ancient design flaws even when everyone knows they're counterproductive (and in the present case, perhaps even fatal)

cadamsdotcom 2y ago
Very much this. There are some design flaws in the US system that are hard to fix - some of which is by design. The other thing that’s sad to see is that slides into substandard leadership have plenty of precedent - strong, well-run countries have many times reverted thanks to incoming leaders being worse at the job. The US has just come off an exceptional run of competent and strong leaders driven by ideals, but eventually your hot streak is going to come to an end. To put it another way, this looks to be a reversion to the mean.
r00fus 2y ago
Very much so. France is on v5.2 of their Democracy, while the US is still on v1.27