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Comment by rjzzleep | Hacker News Reader

Yup, the worst and most dangerous time is yet to come. This is the country that has the worlds second largest nuclear arsenal. The biggest military logistics infrastructure on the planet and shown a constant willingness to use any force necessary to bend other people to their will.

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One hopes, if it gets that far, somebody in the military will finally defy orders, and although the US has its first coup d'etat, the rule of law can return.

I still remember some redditor saying what happened in Nazi Germany couldn't happen in the US because of patriotism. Oh how smug I'd be to ask him "how did that work out?". Hopefully the military doesn't lock step into Armageddon, but "hope" is doing a lot of work there.

I hope so, too. But rule of law and democracy at it's core are cultural achievements - enough people must want it and believe in it. I feel like people start to forget why we have them in place.

ICE aka executive overstepping is a good example. Police actions are highly regulated for good reasons, it won't only affect "the right people".

From what I have heard, a lot of people who voted for Trump don't like the extend of ICE's actions. Even Joe Rogan spoke out. So maybe there's hope.

Europe is fighting the very same battle btw. it just has not manifested that obvious everywhere yet. I fear for Germany falling into the hands of fascists once again in the next years, though.

The US is considered to be a flawed democracy for about 10 years now[1]. Europe, especially the powerful west, has the most healthy democracies.

It's absolutely not a given that the European democracies will survive, people here need to step up in strengthening it against illiberal forces as well, but it's in a much better starting position.

Example: in the Netherlands there was a government with an illiberal far right party (Wilder's PVV). They didn't achieve much, but there was a year of stagnation and the far right talking points have become even more normalized. Other democratic institutions, like judges had to be more on the defense. However, nothing fundamental is broken.

1. https://cpsblog.isr.umich.edu/?p=3417

One flaw we have in Germany in particular is that the chancellor is allowed to stay in power indefinitely if people vote for that person, which potentially gives a lot of time to rebuild the society. It worked out with Merkel who is the anti-thesis of an authorization figure, but that might have been luck.

I don't know how resistant the German constitution and democracy is. I believe it's robust but that's also what people thought about the US with that "checks and balances" that turned out being fake for the most part.

Execution of laws is left to the executive branch. The constitution says power of the executive is vested in one person.

Currently that man is someone who's been convicted of breaking several laws, indicted for others, and has instructed his regime to also ignore some laws...

…and still got elected a second time, despite two impeachments on top of all his other legal woes, his previous term, etc...and he still managed to gain more votes each time he ran.

People seem to forget what this says about the other party.

note, - the - other party. the die was cast long ago.

> From what I have heard, a lot of people who voted for Trump don't like the extend of ICE's actions. Even Joe Rogan spoke out. So maybe there's hope.

The opposition is milquetoast and purely performative. They'll fall right back in line.

They all knew what he was after his last stint.

When the European "far right" are distancing themselves from the US and Trump then you know there's trouble.

Many in the US would regard an EU far right as very liberal.

Except the German fascist (*) party AfD, they get along with Musk and Trump, but then again, other far right parties have distanced from them.

(*) I am not one of the people that uses such harsh words easily. It's just... it's actually that bad and they get more and more votes every year.

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