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Comment by Tagbert | Hacker News Reader

We Americans may need to take notes on this depending on the results of this fall's election.

maybe americans should try do sometyhing about the obvious messing with fair elections.. perhaps it could start by copying the EU system of voter ID and paper ballots

...and proportional representation

most definitely, but of course, that might also include deporting illegal aliens that are significantly skewing the seats each state gets, but yeah. I dont care if its inconvenient for one or the other party, it has to be PROPER

Or we could just allocate voting districts proportional to the number of actual voters. I always found it rather weird as a legal immigrant that my presence in my district somehow increased the voting power of all the citizens there. Or we could just switch to an electoral system where that point is altogether moot...

However, none of this is going to happen because federal politics is pretty much completely deadlocked at this point. We can't even pass regular legislation on critical matters reliably, never mind constitutional amendments.

And yet every time claims of large scale voter fraud have been brought to courts where actual evidence is required, it has been found to be bogus. Perhaps the “proper” part should be in how politicians honor actual elections instead of lying and claiming fraud when they lose.

those are not the risks to fair elections. politicians who deny the election results and use lies and misdirection to convince their followers that the election was "stolen" are the true risks.

Defend your democracy with a broader view

Do not fall into the trap blaming a demagogue, where did they come from? Why?

Not much to do with politics, much to do with culture

Oh I know that the supporters are willing participants in the big lie meant to undermine the elections and democracy in general.

Before Trump: America is over if Trump gets elected

After Trump: America is over if Trump gets re-elected, for realsies this time

He was a bad and incompetent president and a loose enough screw to make anything happen, but the liberal imagination has a tendency to be hyperbolic.

> loose enough screw to make anything happen

eg "stand back and stand by"; cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capito...

At least the SA pretended not to be a paramilitary organisation, but masqueraded as a "gymnastics club" before they got into power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung#:~:text=More%20...

As a gun owner with a bunch of ARs in the safe, I used to run in hardcore pro-Trump far right circles for many years. What I've seen there is, quite literally, people preparing for war.

I'm not saying that all or even most Trump voters are like that. But there are definitely quite a few people like that basically just sitting and waiting for a clear go-ahead signal from someone whom they trust, and they are already well-armed and somewhat organized. And they all seem to trust Trump.

> “I used to”

What changed for you?

I stopped tolerating such people even for the sake of a hobby that I enjoy.

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