Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

~~~

~~~

Friday, May 28, 2021

 


American Democracy Isn’t Dead Yet, but It’s Getting There 





 “ 'Turns out, things are much worse than we expected,' Daniel Ziblatt, one of the 'How Democracies Die' authors, told me this week. He said he had never envisioned a scenario like the one that has played itself out among Republicans on Capitol Hill during the past few months. How could he have? It’s hard to imagine anyone in America, even when “How Democracies Die” was published, a year into Trump’s term, seriously contemplating an American President who would unleash an insurrection in order to steal an election that he clearly lost—and then still commanding the support of his party after doing so."

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

It must be painfully uncomfortable to work as hard at denying reality as the trumpublicans do. Being so detached, out of touch, and cowering in fear of truth must be a terrible prison to lock yourself into.

Jerry said...

This should come as no surprise to anyone. Trump power is not dead because he lost the election. Trump cultists aren't going anywhere. The only way to get rid of them is to vote them all out of office and that won't happen because to large an amount of the American people want this garbage. Sad.

Ray Cranston said...

Let’s stop acting like republicans are a viable political party.

They’re traitors and seditionists.

They’re not interested in making America a better place, or helping anyone.
Pelosi and Schumer need to start treating them as the enemy to American democracy that they are.

Ray said...

More crap from the Crap Faucet:

"Except he really didn’t inspire anything if we read the transcripts of what he said. Yes, there were very angry Republicans and he did little to calm them down because, as he said in that speech, he really likes having so many people there for HIM!….and yes, some of them went overboard, but I believe it was the Leftie activists who egged them on. And the Lefties got what they wanted.

SO….GET TRUMP for his fans entering CONGRESS!!!

BUT WAIT! I just watched some video of more illegals crossing the border. So far, I believe it’s about 200,000?
Trump’s ‘followers’ entered the Capitol….Biden’s ‘followers’ who loved his encouragement to come into America and you can stay are ENTERING OUR COUNTRY TO OUR DETRIMENT!"


"some went OVERBOARD?" Yeah. Overboard LIKE KILLING, MAIMING, CAUSING DEATH!

These Trump crimers are always covering Trump's treasonous fat ass. Would this idiot be excusing what happened on Jan. 6 if Obama or any Dem was screaming at his mobs about the unfair election and saying his vice president has to do the right thing and stop the e.c. count?

That moron who wrote the above is lying to herself and the idiots who read her crap!

Shaw Kenawe said...

Ray, I read this:

YES..>TRUMP IS IN TROUBLE FOR INSURRECTION ON 1/6……..BIDEN IS IN NO TROUBLE FOR REAL INSURRECTION THE LAST FOUR MONTHS.

Unfortunately, she and her readers don't understand the difference between Trump cultists attacking the U.S. Government at the U.S. Capitol building, looking for the then Vice President Pence to "HANG PENCE!", destroying property, maiming Capitol police, and causing the deaths of some, and migrants trying to get to the border.

One of those things is actually TREASON against the United States government; the other is a border problem. They. Are. Not. The. Same. Thing., no matter how those poor benighted people on the Mother Ship try to compare and make them the same thing.

President Biden: "Biden tells migrants 'don't come over' US border as he tackles inherited 'mess.' President announces steps to cope with rise of child migrants.

Apparently the Capt. of the Mother Ship can't tell the difference and neither can her crew.

This explains why Trump was elected in 2016, and why his cultists believe his BIG LIE.

They are not very bright, and obviously delight in sharing their foolish lies with each other.

Paula said...

The stuff from the Mother Ship proves just how out of touch with reality (and everything else) the Tin Foil Hats for Trump brigade actually is, and how scary they really are.

They don't seem to realize that the Great Orange Wonder (at least on the surface, and on the paper he has very selectively chosen to release publicly about his financial affairs) is an elite. He's a trust fund millionaire, for God's sake, not some workaday Joe with a blue collar and a tin lunch pail, knocking back quarter drafts with the boys down at the Legion.

For heaven's sake, the jerk doesn't even like poor people, or working class people, or anybody who doesn't look like him, or act like him, or who isn't as "successful" as he is, albeit on a great deal of other people's money.

He is, however, on record saying he "loves" uneducated people, which is where they all come in.

The guy's been out of office for almost six months now, and they still don't get that they have been well and truly played.

And neither, it appears, do the majority of Republican members of Congress.

Dave Miller said...

As it regards immigration, there are lots of things to consider.

But here's one of the biggest...

With the plummeting birthrates around the world, humanity is facing a real problem. And we are facing it here in the US. Unless we get more people, literally millions into our workforce, the US systems of Social Security, Medicare and more will collapse.

Currently the world is not replacing dying people with new births. The problem is acutely perilous in developed countries such as the US. There are only two ways for a country right the low birth rate ship of coming disaster.

1. Raise the birth rate. Since in the US it has been falling for years, there is no reason to expect a turn around anytime soon.

2. Import workers. The US is at a pre crisis level and we need more workers. We are not brimming with millions upon millions of workers looking for jobs. The dirty secret is they don't exist. And the only way we can import workers is through immigration.

Now, the sailors on the HMS Mothership of Denial all give lip service to "legal immigration." But they would never support the numbers of legal immigrants we need to turn our problem around. That is evidenced by their support for Trump, who cut legal immigration by 50%.

So while there is a crisis at the border, it's a crisis of our own making. If we simply opened up our immigration policies we could fix the "insurrection" some see at the border.

by doing that we'd solve our lack of young workers entering their prime work years, shore up Social Security and Medicare with new younger workers and, wait for it, grow our economy.

But of course that would require people to think rationally, something the extremists seem unable to do.

Recovering Republican said...


The Svengali of Mar-a-Lago has effectively hypnotized huge numbers of once-rational Americans to believe in a fictional universe that George Orwell would recognize immediately from his own writings. What the hell has happened to these people that has made them so willing to divorce themselves from reality? This is like a bad science-fiction movie.

Americans, we had better wake up from this mass hysteria before it's too late. If this nutiness is allowed to spread unchecked, the good old U.S. of A. will not be a fit place to live for any but the most warped paranoid far-right extremists, armed to the teeth and willing to believe whatever the craziest conspiracies they can cook up.

Meanwhile Matt the Pervert and Marjorie Taylor Nutjob are out there whipping up their ignorant fans with speeches like this one, "We have a Second Amendment in this country, and I think we have an obligation to use it. The second amendment is not about hunting, it's not about recreation, it's not about sports. The second amendment is about maintaining, within the citizenry, the ability to maintain an armed rebellion against the government if that becomes necessary." To the wild cheering of his audience, he then adds, "I hope it never does," but then goes on to make it clear that he will support the violence that will precipitate the overthrow of any election result that will make it necessary, i.e. that doesn't go his way.

Anonymous said...

... that would require people to think rationally...

The chances of that happening in the Q-GOP, trump's party, is ZERO.

Anonymous said...


Off with WHO’s HEAD??
Posted on May 29, 2021 by geeez2014


I BLAME THE MEDIA NOW FOR THE FACT THAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY DON’T GET THE WONDERFULNESS THAT WAS TRUMP’S AMERICA.

DAMN THEM ALL.



Soooooooo, the woman who writes that Trump cultist blog is a substitute teacher?


"Off With "Who's" head?????????? That says "Off With Who Is Head."

Where did she get her teaching certificate? At Trump University?

I blame Trump! Damn him and his dumb cultists!


Bwahahahahahaha!

Dave Miller said...

Anon... yes, she substitutes as an English teacher at a Westside Los Angeles private high school.

Kind of ironic isn't it?

skudrunner said...

The fact is trump is mostly responsible for the current problems in the US. He is the reason we have the current basement president who only knows that the way to winning an election is to buy it.

I agree with the Rev on the worker issue but the illegals crossing the border are not qualified to fill the jobs that are open. You don't work you don't eat is one policy that will assist in the labor shortage because there are in fact more jobs than people unemployed no seeking work. There has been talk about immigration reform for several administrations and the closest we came was W but he was defeated by his own party.

I support an investigation of Jan 6th and Portland, Seattle, Kenosha, Chicago and all the rest of the riots to see who funded them. Where has all the millions collected for BLM gone. Hunter should be in the mix as well as daddys involvement in his million's dollar payoff. Lets get it all out in the open and demand our elected elite do their job.

Shaw Kenawe said...

skud: "I support an investigation of Jan 6th and Portland, Seattle, Kenosha, Chicago and all the rest of the riots to see who funded them"


Sorry skud, what happened in Portland, Seattle, Kenosha, Chicago, etc. is not the same as what happened on Jan. 6 in Washington D.C. That was an attack on the government of the United States,-- a treasonous act! incited by a sitting POTUS. There is no comparison, and you and the rest of the Trumpers will not get away with lumping what happened in DC on Jan. 6 with what happened in the other cities.

What happened in those cities was the result of extra-judicial killings of people of color going unpunished for decades by police. 'A riot is the language of the unheard'. Not that you or any of your pals give a flying donut about those injustices. But the rioting is a result of ignoring what's been going on for decades. And the Chauvin conviction is a rare, rare conviction in those killings.

What happened in DC on 1/6 was a riot resulting in Trump's Big Lie that the election was stolen. A lie that to this day he's still promoting. Trump and his people LOST 60 COURT CASES that they brought to contest the elections, judges in a lot of those cases were Trump appointees. Trump's own AG said there was no fraud, the head of cyber security in Trump's own administration said the election was the safest in years.

Trump tried to get the Secy. of State of Georgia to "find some extra votes" so he could cheat and win Georgia's electoral votes. That little trick of his is now under investigation in Georgia.

Arizona's votes were counted and certified THREE TIMES, and shown to be secure and correct and won by Joe Biden.

What in the hell is wrong with you and other Trumpers? When are you people going to wake up and see the lies he's been feeding you and you slavishly believe?

Your complicity is killing our democracy!

skudrunner said...

You may feel different if someone you knew was killed or their business was burned. Joey said he was going to punish the rich so he cancels the pipeline laying off over 20,000 workers and approves russian pipeline to germany. Inflation affects everyone especially the poor who pay no taxes but will pay at the grocery counter and gas pumps, where is the compassion from the left.

Trump lost and biden won but now the libs are all about trump and nothing about the progressive agenda that hurts everyone. What about the origins of the virus, nope it wasn't china according to the administration. What about iran, NKO, china, russia and all the cyber hacks which originated in russia. What about hunter selling influence, guess none of this matters because the dems took down trump. Trump lied but so did joey.

Bluebullamerica said...

Not qualified to pick produce? Farmers all over the country are losing money to a chronic worker shortage, work that no American will do, but somehow Skidmark thinks the people coming across the border are 'taking American jobs.' Skid, if you EVER pull your head out of your backside, let me know. I'll be happy to send you a case of Fabreeze.

Your overblown and idiotic whining about Portland and other cities, is nothing more than a cheap excuse to turn a blond eye to the attempted coup perpetrated by Trump and a very compliant GQP. They are traitors to our country, but you and the rest of the radicalized right wing would love nothing more than to make this about people demanding that the police not murder them because of the color of their skin. Fah Gedda Boutit!

skudrunner said...

Blueballs, where did I say illegals are taking American jobs. I did say most of them are not qualified to take the jobs available. I guess in your opinion illegals are only good for working the fields much the same as the democrats in the south felt about blacks, at least you haven't changed.

I don't see a lot of support for biden because the left is all about trump. He still dominates the news because the left has little to say about the current administration that is positive except he is a nice guy and is not trump.

Bluebullamerica said...

You're full of BS, Skidmark. We talk about King Clorox because he remains a very real threat to our nation and has NEVER fully been brought to the justice he deserves and morality demands.
Of course people crossing the border can do more than farm work. But MANY of them do come here and make a living doing farm work. Who exactly do you expect will do that work? Who? Meanwhile, you're disgusting party is busy making these hard working people into something evil, limiting voters and attacking a woman's choice all while holding the most evil person ever elected to the office of president up as some kind of messiah. Ya'll are sick, evil, unpatriotic and rather dense, honestly. What made you folks that way? A serious question.

Anonymous said...

The record remains broken.