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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Incredible how much damage a single individual can do to the world. So much for checks-and-balances, I've seen people argue over and over again that no matter what the 'checks and balances' will straighten things out and will prevent the worst. The United States is losing stature in the world day by day and with at least another 2.5 years of this madness ahead there is no telling how bad things are going to get.

I'm certainly not counting on anybody suddenly growing a backbone and setting some limits, if that were to happen you would expect it to have happened by now.

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> The United States is losing stature in the world day by day

As a foreigner looking in for five decades I'd say that the post-Vietnam US stature was cyclical; generally positive but with the ability to surprise in a negative manner ( Panama and Grenada being two examples ), though such incidents were usually brief and forgiven like rare tantrums.

But that has changed; the current downturn is unusually deep and sustained, dating back to 2001. There has been no amelioration in image since then, it has been a steady decline and each subsequent global action has lost the element of surprise. The USA now conjures images of drone strikes, paramilitary police and unilateralism. Withdrawing from the HRC barely moves the needle.

There are already checks and balances. Unfortunately Congress and a sizeable portion of the public are with him. He is not a dictator, he legitimately won the election and I can see good support for him on my Facebook "friends"

Not to compare the two, but Adolf Hitler also got into power pretty much legitimately. He was elected, and the Enabling Act of 1933 that gave him the power to enact laws passed Reichstag and Reichsrat and was signed by the president.

You can reach dictatorship in legal ways. Being abolished may be seen as an inherent design feature of democracies.

I'm not a Hitler expert, but I didn't know he was elected. What position did he get elected to prior to the Enabling Act giving the Nazis power? Is it comparable to being elected President in the US?

He lost the presidential election, but was then appointed chancellor by Hindenburg after the Nazis won most of the government through the electoral process. Chancellor of Germany is roughly equivalent to president of the US (Angela Merkel is chancellor). After that civil liberties were revoked.

So he was not elected, but he was legally appointed and as a result of overwhelming electoral victories by his party. Just another example of the non-equivalence of “legal” and “moral” in all cases.

It is a salient point as a response to the post: There are already checks and balances. Unfortunately Congress and a sizeable portion of the public are with him. He is not a dictator, he legitimately won the election and I can see good support for him on my Facebook "friends"

The failure of government to stand up to a dangerous and deranged populist is relevant IMO. When that populist then leads the government, it’s time to at least be concerned. I doubt that Trump is worthy of direct comparison to Hitler beyond that point, but I’m also glad that I don’t live in the US right now!

    > Is it comparable to being elected President in the US?

You'll get a decent idea of the situation by reading up on the Reichstag fire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire

This is people "growing a backbone and setting some limits". The system has actually held better than I expected.

There'd be even less damage if Clinton, Bush, and Obama hadn't progressively neutered Congress (and if Congress hadn't progressively become useless). I hope (somewhat unrealistically) that Congress will look at the current situation and try to reverse some of the damage of the last two or three decades...

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