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Comment by 9283409232 | Hacker News Reader

It's wild watching South Korea protect their democracy at the same time the US throws theirs away.

And how exactly is the U.S. throwing its own away? In the last elections, held right on schedule as constitutionally designed, a certain slight majority percentage of voters picked their candidate and he got elected. Or do you define throwing away as any time someone you don't like wins, legitimately, through the exact process designed for picking heads of state?

It's getting tedious to see the hysterics that many go into about the destruction of democracy whenever whatever their emotional and ideological preference is doesn't happen as they want.

The guy who won is a traitor

The guy who won literally tried to steal the last election and started an insurrection: https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/76c2c1e8...

(He’a also a felon and a rapist, but I suppose those qualities can be weighed separately from the treason and sedition.)

We did elect a guy who is trying to control the Press and says that the lie of the stolen election is grounds for terminating articles of the Constitution. And who tried to undermine the results of the previous election.

And he's extremely charismatic and popular.

It's not a great look.

I mostly agree with your point, but one pedantic correction is that only a slight plurality of voters, not a slight majority, picked Trump. Trump won 49.8% of the popular vote.

Hitler was elected too. He then destroyed democracy while not actually breaking any laws.

> Trump is literally Hitler

Like he said, "It's getting tedious to see the hysterics."

Why didn't Trump seize power during multiple key opportunities in his term (soon after inauguration when his supporters and his rhetoric were at their most right-wing and Republicans held everything, or during the pandemic)? Why is Trump such a fan of Israel and their American counterparts?

I think uncle H would not approve of your comparison.

My reply is a counter-argument to @southernplaces7's opinion that elections, as a means by which democracy works, can't be bad for democracy itself. They can, and Hitler proved it.

Trump and first his administration were incompetent. He has a much tighter ship this time around.

Mercifully, lol no.

I wasn't expecting Godwin's Law to be involved so quickly.

There are a couple right-wing pundits that ring a bell on their podcast every time someone mentions Hitler. It's an instant dismissal.

But at some point, the bell has to stop, right?

Let's say for the sake of example that the President of the US decides that a certain ethnic and/or religious group needs to be sent to guarded camps to be imprisoned.

Someone might say, rightly, "Hey, Hitler did this! Maybe we should think twice!"

Ding! Your argument is dismissed! ...Or does the comment actually get acknowledged? I'm curious to find where we'll put that line as a country.

Hitler wasn't elected. He was appointed as chancellor by the president he tried to beat in elections, none of which he ever won with enough of a margin to be elected president. That little bit of pedantry aside, the circumstances and central philosophies (such as they were) of the Hitler dictatorship and factors leading up to it are so different from the circumstances of Trumps presidency that comparing them is mostly crap.

Also, Trump has actually been elected, in a fairly functional, generally working as designed process that did what it was made to do. Whether you like him or not, his winning this election was exactly the opposite of democracy being broken.

It was an affirmation of the process, in which a maverick, newcomer politician was able to win once despite disdain not only from virtually all of the opposition and much of the media but also even from those within the very party he represented, and then later secure a second victory in which he reshaped the political landscape around him and the party that had formerly only grudgingly accepted him. I can't at all see how that's an example of supposed democratic process failure.

> And how exactly is the U.S. throwing its own away?

There was an attempt:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capito...

Sadly the (alleged) instigator seems to not be held to account:

* https://www.justice.gov/storage/Report-of-Special-Counsel-Sm...

There have also been more subtle machinations:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDMAP

Every single president has been impeached or committed suicide.

That is not true. Moon Jae-in (opposite party) was not impeached and is still alive and well.

It's not true at all

Yeah I was wrong my mistake

SK looked like they were skating on the edge too. But as an American, yes.

I assume you're a lot more familiar than me with South Korea and the US to make sweeping statements like this one.

I for one follow the news from both and realize that I don't really know enough to have strong opinions. I honestly can't tell whether the South Korean president being arrested is something that furthers democracy or doesn't, what role the president fulfills in that democracy etc. I'm not going to jump to conclusions until I've spent a lot more time learning about the topic (which I'm unlikely to do because it's really not super important for me).

>I'm not going to jump to conclusions until I've spent a lot more time learning about the topic (which I'm unlikely to do because it's really not super important for me).

Huh? Did you consider not adding a comment to this thread (before learning enough on this topic to have a substantive contribution)?

I did consider whether I should respond - yes. I think it is substantive in a meta sort of way to point out people shouldn't jump to conclusions without having deep understanding of South Korean politics. Politics on HN always seem to go south and I guess this is going to be another one of those but I'd rather say what I think then browse away.

> people shouldn't jump to conclusions without having deep understanding

For what it’s worth, deleting or editing out one’s comments always an option.

Only within the first two hours.

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