An Independence Day thought experiment | Hacker News Reader

An Independence Day thought experiment

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28 pointsTomte29 comments

TLDR; Elected and unelected officials in the U.S. government, including the president, have forgotten that they're "public servants" and would be well-served by an icon that offered them frequent reminders that their role is to do the will of the people.

OPINION: The great people of England voted for Brexit - The U.S. citizens voted for Trump. Both clearly represent that the populations are looking for a seachange - I'm not sure that advice from England to the U.S. or vice-versa will contain the wisdom that both countries need.

Trump received 3 million fewer votes than his leading opponent. A series of technicalities elected Trump, not the majority of U.S. voters.

The majority of U.S. voters who voted. Far more citizens did not vote for anyone, than voted for Clinton or Trump.

"A series of technicalities" also known as "the rules".

The only way to determine a meaningful popular vote count is to conduct the election as such. Your number is meaningless. Try to imagine how different the campaign and messaging would have been without targeted swing states.

TLDR; America should have a monarch, who can do all the entertaining insane things Trump does without also destroying the country.

Couple of key quotes:

"Looking at 10 Downing Street and the American White House now, I wonder which nation is constitutionally most in danger of allowing a tyrant to arise."

"My modest proposal on this, America’s great national holiday weekend, is that you choose an Uncle Sam or Aunt Samantha by lottery (which is all the birth of a monarch is) and give this person the powers of a constitutional sovereign, with precedence of state over the elected president. To save face, this person needn’t be called a monarch — “first American” or “sovereign citizen” will do. A reality TV competition can be held to finalize all the details. Americans are awfully good at that sort of thing."

From where I stand, things are also trending in a pretty bad direction in the U.K. too... not sure the Queen really help much.

Obviously written tongue-in-cheek but I don't despise the idea of an annual chosen one to moderate some sort of state function or discussion. I've always thought it would be cool to have a presidential office hour where everyday I would meet with a randomly selected citizen (who asked for an hour) and give them a chance to voice their concerns and viewpoints to me, directly, in person. Also, there is 0 chance this would have been written a year or more ago, or if Hillary had won.

Maybe we should offer Trump to be the monarch.

That is actually not a bad idea. My only concern is such a position must not be hereditary.

Perhaps we have a president who fancies himself a sovereign already?

If you've ever read U.K. media you'd know that they're far worse than us in terms of political ridiculousness. Not to mention far ahead of us in creating an Orwellian surveillance state.

No, the Tories tend to be assholes, but are smarter and not as insane/blatant as the GOP. Labour... well, we'll see. Corbyn's overturned everything. The UK is a smaller country so it can consider things that just would not fly in America. The Blairites are like covert Republicans who say they're Democrats.

Yeah on the surveillance state, but the saving grace is the British tend to be a bit more incompetent in a lot of things, based on my American sensibilities. And they end up wasting money which gets things shut down. Especially government run things. All the jokes about tea breaks aren't exactly jokes either.

May has no clue at all about much of anything IT related, so they are going to have to go house to house to ensure everyone in this country isn't using a VPN. And the British tend to be obstreperous, so that means EVERY house. The only real solution is to nationalize all the ISPs and what Tory is going to vote for that?

It seems like this post is implying that Trump is on his way to becoming a tyrant, but for all of his faults and bad manners I have a hard time viewing him as more than a temporary setback or perhaps even a wake-up call for the establishment. Why do some folks apparently perceive him to be a threat to our democracy or otherwise speak about him in such dramatic terms?

Because he seems to be actually creating an oligarchy in the USA, firing and hiring people for top administration like he sees fit in order to concentrate power around him.

This doesn't seem plausible to me; it will take him through his first term to fill a critical mass of these positions; he'll be in his way out before he gets there.

Let's hope so that he doesn't have time, but I think people are fooling themselves by thinking he will get voted out of a second mandate. If he lasts that long without an impeachment, history tells us that it's highly improbable that he loses the election for the 2nd term.

Even if he did get a second term, I have to wonder how much harm he could do. I have a hard time believing it's as bad as some people make it out to be. For all the grief our form of government gets, it is pretty robust against tyranny.

The rationale, which I am a bit worried about, is that the unspoken norms of how American politics has always operated are getting decimated. If some sort of positive reinforcement loop gets established... But more conscious awareness of these norms and how important they are is only better. Read up on Masha Gesson [1]. I think it is more apparent exactly how aberrant the GOP has become and that is a good thing. But a clear and present danger, like he's going to hand America over to Putin next year? No, there is enough pushback going on that I am not very worried. As long as eventually, someone publicly goes to jail...

But now I am reminded of the Bush years when a survey of 18 year olds found most of them thought the First Amendment should be limited in some overly strict way... it was something like that - it was nothing like the understanding of things when I was 18, so yes, society's morals or what constitutes "common understanding" can shift in response to current events. Trump needs to be seen as a serious aberration, not just a speed bump, and this needs to be communicated to the under-18 crowd.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masha_Gessen

This person needs a better understanding of the US Constitution. There are clear checks and balances in place. This is one of the main differences between parliamentary and the US form of branch government.

Basically: The president clearly doesn't respect the people, so why not create a powerless figurehead they "have to" respect? Because obviously the UK is the model democracy everybody looks up to.

To those who don't know: this is obviously written in jest. It's a bit of fun light entertainment, a fantasy.

If a humorous movie was made with this premise, would you be taking it this seriously?

For a more serious intellectual argument in favor of monarchy over democracy, see "Democracy, The God That Failed" by libertarian theorist Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy:_The_God_That_Failed

I am neither a monarchist nor a libertarian, but the book is a good read.

Here is a more straightforward argument for adopting a monarchy, which is that it may be helpful to treat the head of state as necessarily embodying dignity, but the president should be seen as just another politician.

https://thinkprogress.org/the-case-for-a-king-717ae1eb35f5

It's a nutty idea. America has no king. America needs no king.

But in fairness the presidency is a powerful position and has grown more so over time. And there are other ways of doing things. In some republics, the president is a fairly minor figure, largely ceremonial. Does that work better?

Perhaps the benefit of the Trump presidency will be the average American wakes up to how non-important the President is in of itself and that the important thing is the process of politics, or the unspoken norms that Trump is demolishing, or ... something more abstract than the position and whoever is the current inhabitant. That was sort of the point of the American Revolution and all the ideals America is supposed to embody. [i.e. the progressive libtard ones, not the regressive pseudo-conservative aka almost fascist ones Trump is a symbol of]

In those republics that role often fufils the role of the monarch, I think.

As an American who has lived in the UK for 10 years now, I can only say: bollocks!

The fact that the Royal Family even still exists and still has significant political power is the foundation of the UK's more rigid social structure / social hierarchy than in America - figureheads like the Royal Family and the President are, first and foremost, symbols and from this, society's psychosocial framework is derived. Perhaps it is only my projections / being an American, but I get twinges that deep down, the English unconsciously still believe the Royal Family and the unelected de-facto aristocracy like David Cameron are inherently -better human beings- than the rest of the populace. [Downton Abbey was complete nonsense] America is not founded upon such a notion and the fact that even an idiot like Donald Trump can be president says something. (Yeah, something in the machinery broke down.... the dust filter?). But living here has made me appreciate aspects of America I never much was aware of back home though.

The GOP however seem to want to turn America into something like ... well, god only knows these days. They certainly believe 90% of Americans exist only for the benefit of the top 10%. Trump is their version of the Shock Doctrine and we need to take how Italy finally got rid of Berlusconi into account if we want to get rid of Trump pronto.

Stephen Fry does not understand America's symbols either. Our "Royal Family" is the Constitution and I would certainly rather have an inanimate object be that symbol (of the ideals of the society etc) than a actual human being. Otherwise the chances of personality cults etc - Chavez, Stalin, Putin... - increases. And there is a personality cult around the Queen, however benign. And ... Trump has always tried to create and rely upon a personality cult for his BS. America is falling for it, it seems.

You insensitive clod! Today is Canada's birthday.

Happy hat-birthday America!

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