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Populism and democracy are orthogonal. Usually populists just ride democracy as a vehicle to where they really want to go. If The People selected you as their

Populism and democracy are orthogonal. Usually populists just ride democracy as a vehicle to where they really want to go. If The People selected you as their Chosen Leader, who needs pesky Elites in the courts and the Corrupt bureaucrats holding you back, the Chosen One? All opposition to what The People want is elitist gatekeeping and needs to be violently eradicated.

EnPissant 1y ago
Suppose a political candidate runs on a platform of mass deportations of illegal aliens. If he wins the election and then makes good on this campaign promise, is that populism or democracy?
- DonHopkins 1y ago
  It was called Fascism when Hitler did it. Why, did you have somebody else in mind?
  - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    Deporting illegal immigrants is called enforcing the law, not fascism.
    - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
      Depends on how you do it. Yes, they are here in violation of the law. But if that's what bothers you, then the process you use to deport them had better be in keeping with the law. If what bothers you about them being here is the "illegal" aspect, then you must not trample the legal process in order to remove them.
      - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
        For example what's an illegal way of departing an illegal immigrant?
        whatnow37373 1y ago
        Surely there is some kind of due process? You can't just pick up foreign looking types and ship them off in black vans. That would be an illegal way to do that, I believe (I hope). I'm not American so I don't know how it works over there.
        FirmwareBurner 1y ago
        [flagged]
        Dylan16807 1y ago
        > meaning the due process has been already run and determined they are illegal I'm pretty certain that is not what most people mean when they say "illegal immigrant".
        FirmwareBurner 1y ago
        And that's my problem how? I'm using the logical definition of the word, not trying to mind read what other peoples' interpretation might be. Illegal immigrant = an immigrant who is here illegally/against the law. What other stronger definitions of the word are there?
        Dylan16807 1y ago
        > Illegal immigrant = an immigrant who is here illegally/against the law I'm confused. This is how most people define the term, and is not what you said before. What you said before is "due process has been already run and determined they are illegal". There is a vast difference between someone that broke the law and someone that was convicted of breaking the law. When the average person says "illegal immigrant" they mean someone that broke immigration law. Nothing about whether due process has been applied. So if you start rounding up "illegal immigrants" and deporting them right away, that's a big problem, because not all of them had due process and you'll inevitably grab innocent people.
      - rayiner 1y ago
        That’s a bizarre argument. Conduct is illegal because it’s bad or has harmful effects. Immigration laws exist because society recognizes that immigration has various undesirable effects (cultural change, strain on public resources, etc.), so we need to restrict immigration to controllable levels that manage those negative effects. The objection to illegal immigrants is that they’re here. While deportation efforts should follow the law like everything else, there’s nothing about illegal immigration that makes the legal process especially important compared to other things.
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
    - Gibbon1 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
        >You'll vote for a guy that raped a 12 year old girl. You don't care. Where did I say this? Who is this "you" here? Why are you making accusations in bad faith trying to demonize people you don't know using words they haven't said and arguments they haven't made?
        erxam 1y ago
        It's always the same thing with you types. Grasping at words like some kind of hyper-logical machine trying to find some magical logical fallacy that will somehow invalidate the speaker's entire argument. Let's set facts here: you are arguing for a position held by the dictator in charge of the USA today, and it is plenty transparent that you voted for him and you love everything he's doing. Everything else is just misdirection so you can try and confuse any bystanders, abusing the very same 'niceness' and 'non-political' messaging you accuse others of breaking all the time. Let's not mince words here anymore. Everyone can see through you. If you're doing it deliberately, congratulations.
        DonHopkins 1y ago
        And it's painfully obvious that he's got a lot of unresolved hatred and bigotry issues.
- whatnow37373 1y ago
  There's a couple of aspects to it that, in my opinion, need to come together. Bypassing and/or undermining democratic institutions (media, courts, bureaucracy) and claiming exclusive representation - "I alone represent The People" - come to mind. Mass deportations, without more context, in and of themselves are more a policy and less a political style. You can execute this policy in a democratic or populist fashion.
  - EnPissant 1y ago
    > media, courts, bureaucracy This is a gross redefinition of democracy. But we can go down this path if you wish. If a judge rules that only men can vote by their interpretation of the constitution, is that democracy?
    - rayiner 1y ago
      It’s Schrödinger’s democracy. Roe voiding nearly every state’s abortion laws was “democracy,” but Dobbs returning the issue to the states was “judicial fiat.”
    - whatnow37373 1y ago
      I have a more maximalist view of what democracy means which is I believe more common in Europe and I suspect that's where most of your disagreement stems from. First of all no single judge will be capable of upholding this, but let's say the entire judiciary has indeed decided to disenfranchise half the population I'd say they are grossly failing at their job. But anyway, your question was: is that democracy? Well, it depends. In my democracy it would not be, because freedom is a big part of what democracy means here - even if The People decide freedom is unimportant. That's what we don't like about naked democracy, it easily leads to mob rule in which freedom is stripped and the tyrannical majority overrides all other concerns. In my mind democracy is a broad system of checks, balances and institutions in which the will of the people is just one element. An important one, but definitely not the only one. Just for entertainment consider this: if The People vote to keep women out of the electoral process, is that democracy?
      - 1y ago

EnPissant 1y ago

Suppose a political candidate runs on a platform of mass deportations of illegal aliens. If he wins the election and then makes good on this campaign promise, is that populism or democracy?

DonHopkins 1y ago
It was called Fascism when Hitler did it. Why, did you have somebody else in mind?
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  Deporting illegal immigrants is called enforcing the law, not fascism.
  - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
    Depends on how you do it. Yes, they are here in violation of the law. But if that's what bothers you, then the process you use to deport them had better be in keeping with the law. If what bothers you about them being here is the "illegal" aspect, then you must not trample the legal process in order to remove them.
    - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
      For example what's an illegal way of departing an illegal immigrant?
      - whatnow37373 1y ago
        Surely there is some kind of due process? You can't just pick up foreign looking types and ship them off in black vans. That would be an illegal way to do that, I believe (I hope). I'm not American so I don't know how it works over there.
        FirmwareBurner 1y ago
        [flagged]
        Dylan16807 1y ago
        > meaning the due process has been already run and determined they are illegal I'm pretty certain that is not what most people mean when they say "illegal immigrant".
        FirmwareBurner 1y ago
        And that's my problem how? I'm using the logical definition of the word, not trying to mind read what other peoples' interpretation might be. Illegal immigrant = an immigrant who is here illegally/against the law. What other stronger definitions of the word are there?
        Dylan16807 1y ago
        > Illegal immigrant = an immigrant who is here illegally/against the law I'm confused. This is how most people define the term, and is not what you said before. What you said before is "due process has been already run and determined they are illegal". There is a vast difference between someone that broke the law and someone that was convicted of breaking the law. When the average person says "illegal immigrant" they mean someone that broke immigration law. Nothing about whether due process has been applied. So if you start rounding up "illegal immigrants" and deporting them right away, that's a big problem, because not all of them had due process and you'll inevitably grab innocent people.
    - rayiner 1y ago
      That’s a bizarre argument. Conduct is illegal because it’s bad or has harmful effects. Immigration laws exist because society recognizes that immigration has various undesirable effects (cultural change, strain on public resources, etc.), so we need to restrict immigration to controllable levels that manage those negative effects. The objection to illegal immigrants is that they’re here. While deportation efforts should follow the law like everything else, there’s nothing about illegal immigration that makes the legal process especially important compared to other things.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
  - Gibbon1 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
      >You'll vote for a guy that raped a 12 year old girl. You don't care. Where did I say this? Who is this "you" here? Why are you making accusations in bad faith trying to demonize people you don't know using words they haven't said and arguments they haven't made?
      - erxam 1y ago
        It's always the same thing with you types. Grasping at words like some kind of hyper-logical machine trying to find some magical logical fallacy that will somehow invalidate the speaker's entire argument. Let's set facts here: you are arguing for a position held by the dictator in charge of the USA today, and it is plenty transparent that you voted for him and you love everything he's doing. Everything else is just misdirection so you can try and confuse any bystanders, abusing the very same 'niceness' and 'non-political' messaging you accuse others of breaking all the time. Let's not mince words here anymore. Everyone can see through you. If you're doing it deliberately, congratulations.
        DonHopkins 1y ago
        And it's painfully obvious that he's got a lot of unresolved hatred and bigotry issues.
whatnow37373 1y ago
There's a couple of aspects to it that, in my opinion, need to come together. Bypassing and/or undermining democratic institutions (media, courts, bureaucracy) and claiming exclusive representation - "I alone represent The People" - come to mind. Mass deportations, without more context, in and of themselves are more a policy and less a political style. You can execute this policy in a democratic or populist fashion.
- EnPissant 1y ago
  > media, courts, bureaucracy This is a gross redefinition of democracy. But we can go down this path if you wish. If a judge rules that only men can vote by their interpretation of the constitution, is that democracy?
  - rayiner 1y ago
    It’s Schrödinger’s democracy. Roe voiding nearly every state’s abortion laws was “democracy,” but Dobbs returning the issue to the states was “judicial fiat.”
  - whatnow37373 1y ago
    I have a more maximalist view of what democracy means which is I believe more common in Europe and I suspect that's where most of your disagreement stems from. First of all no single judge will be capable of upholding this, but let's say the entire judiciary has indeed decided to disenfranchise half the population I'd say they are grossly failing at their job. But anyway, your question was: is that democracy? Well, it depends. In my democracy it would not be, because freedom is a big part of what democracy means here - even if The People decide freedom is unimportant. That's what we don't like about naked democracy, it easily leads to mob rule in which freedom is stripped and the tyrannical majority overrides all other concerns. In my mind democracy is a broad system of checks, balances and institutions in which the will of the people is just one element. An important one, but definitely not the only one. Just for entertainment consider this: if The People vote to keep women out of the electoral process, is that democracy?
    - 1y ago