Comment by mikewarot | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mikewarot | Hacker News Reader

Look at how freaking close an incompetent reality show star came to overthrowing the expressed will of the voters. There's not a lot to feel good about.

We haven't DeTrumpified the nation yet... if he's not punished, then it was all just practice for next time.

[Edit] Oh... and the Republi-Cratic duopoly that infests Washington DC and exists mostly to suckle at the teat of lobbyists and the promise of future "consultant" gigs.

The whole experiment in government isn't looking to me like it's going to hold out much longer. I really hope I'm wrong. But we've got embedded growth obligations that haven't been addressed in our institutions.

Our infrastructure is nearing collapse. We've embarked on an insane project to turn all of our productive farmland into suburban sprawl, which in turn reduces the density of support infrastructure to the point where it can't possibly be maintained, dooming it to ever wider spread, and brown field inner cores.

[Edit2] Not to mention social media platforms - fracking our cultural fault lines, and commodifying the destruction of society.

How exactly does one “overthrow the country”? You don’t magically become dictator of a country if you take over the Capitol building.

Maybe you should watch the hearings. They laid out pretty clearly what the former president's plan was to remain in power. It doesn't matter that you think it's silly and wouldn't work, there was a plan his team was executing to keep him in power.

It may be time for you to look at your own actions and how they impact those around you.

> Look at how freaking close an incompetent reality show star came to overthrowing the country.

Not very close at all. Unless you think American democracy is so fragile that a few dozen unarmed protesters that walked into an unlocked Capital building and caused a bit of mischief and vandalism is enough to overthrow the country.

I think a much stronger threat stems from Trump's blatant lies about systemic and wide spread election fraud - that are fueling unwarranted distrust in the election system.

This is prompting election-lie advocates to run for state-level election offices. We have impeccable supervisors of elections (both parties) who have received numerous death threats, for simply showing how election fraud allegations are false.

Florida has created an entire law enforcement agency to find election fraud where it doesn't exist.

All of this exists even after courts all over the country bench slapped every one of the bogus election lawsuits.

I submit that any implication that there wasn't meaningful harm done - or that widespread meaningful harm isn't ongoing - falls far short of the mark.

Which is why protestor hung a noose, came within 40 ft of Mike Pence, Mike Pence refused to get in the car with Trump's SS, that's why Trump wanted to march with armed protestors. Domestic terrorists occupied Congress, caused our legislative and executive branch to go into hiding. There are strong indications that there is still significant info to come and that Trump expected violence.

Are you glued to Fox News, lying to yourself, or just flat out being disingenuous?

Nothing you mentioned would have overthrown the country. Violent regime change happens almost exclusively via military actions or widespread popular uprisings.

The top brass of the military would not have supported a coup by Trump and the group that protested that day was not large enough to effect regime change.

> The top brass of the military would not have supported a coup by Trump

I certainly am not confident in your claim. And if the military had stepped in to prevent a federal coup, I think America would have fragmented into several state coalitions. In all cases, the nation has been badly harmed by the rioters and the insurrectionists that led them. Indeed, we’ve yet to see whether the US remains a democracy: several states are doing all they can to dissuade and prevent citizens from voting, or gerrymandering the districts. It’s a knife’s edge now; the country could easily fall to authoritarianism.

The lies Trump told have taken hold, despite all evidence to the contrary. A large portion of the adult population no longer believes in Representative Democracy. They believe the election in 2020 was stolen.

This is a cancer on our Republic that will likely prove fatal.

Oh jesus, calm the fuck down.

We've had an _actual_ revolution where people actually fought and killed each other for years over the rules we wanted to live under. I'd say that was a real threat to the Democracy.

A bunch of retarded white Rambo wannabees changes nothing.

Don't worry, we'll get to vote again and again for years to come for same shitty unpopular candidates because they have the right color/letter next to their name.

>Unless you think American democracy is so fragile

"But none of the founders had the day Benjamin Franklin had. As the story was told and retold on the House floor, Franklin was walking out of Independence Hall after the Constitutional Convention in 1787, when someone shouted out, “Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?”

To which Franklin supposedly responded, with a rejoinder at once witty and ominous: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

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