It’s not alarmist: A second Trump term really is an extinction-level threat to democracy
www.vox.com
Why a second Trump term is a mortal threat to democracy — though perhaps not the way you think.
  • brey1013@lemmy.world
    319·
    17 days ago

    ITT: small, shithole country thinks it’s elections matter even slightly to the rest of the world.

  • tehn00bi@lemmy.world
    333·
    17 days ago

    I think he’s a symptom of a much larger disease. The people behind him, the evangelicals, non college educated whites, the climate change deniers, the industrialists who fight every regulation, the behind closed doors racists. These are the democracy extinction harbingers.

    • NastyNative@mander.xyzEnglish
      647·
      17 days ago

      Or it could be regular family people that are sick of seeing their taxes going to countries not even in NATO. Or the fact that the inflation during this administration has American choosing food or medicine. Or the fact that during this administration housing has become only a dream. Or the facts that the current administration opened the boarder to bring cheap labor to replace us. Yeah great current administration!

      • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
        133·
        17 days ago

        sick of seeing their taxes going to countries not even in NATO.

        This misconception needs to be corrected.

        The tax dollars go to America’s milliary industrial complex. It’s their surplus (which is already budgeted and paid for by the American government) that is sent overseas. No tax dollars leave the USA.

        • NastyNative@mander.xyzEnglish
          214·
          17 days ago

          Forgot money grows on trees! Its still spending our tax dollars thats what I said. I got a crazy idea how about putting that into education or infrastructure. The american people are getting taken advantage any way you try and paint it. Israel has free healthcare and education and they are not part of NATO. They can fund their own genocide!

          • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
            7·
            17 days ago

            I don’t disagree, but the Military Industrial Complex is enabled and funded by both the Republicans and the Democrats. Nothing will stop your tax dollars flowing to it.

      • Bytemeister@lemmy.worldEnglish
        121·
        17 days ago

        Or it could be regular family people that are sick of seeing their taxes going to countries not even in NATO.

        I thought republicans didn’t even like NATO, what’s the butthurt about this?

        Or the fact that the inflation during this administration has American choosing food or medicine.

        We had to choose that long before this administration. The primary source of inflation is corporate greed and the top 0.1% demanding more from the rest of us, while paying less themselves, a position they only get away with because of conservatives.

        Or the fact that during this administration housing has become only a dream.

        Because there are no penalties or dis-incentives for corporations not to buy up all the land and houses. Every time we try to impose such rules, it gets shot down by republicans.

        Or the facts that the current administration opened the boarder to bring cheap labor to replace us.

        Border. Also, the implied violence and expulsion against undocumented workers is what enables employers to pay them such a cheap wage and enforce abysmal working conditions on them. The correct solution is to provide an easy path for work visas, and heavily penalize companies for hiring undocumented workers. You’ll never guess who is against doing that though…

        Your comment is peak “stick in bicycle” meme.

        • NastyNative@mander.xyzEnglish
          210·
          17 days ago

          Im not a republican!

          Food prices inflated during the current administration, food was super affordable. What did Biden do to try and control inflation? Nothing could care less.

          Again housing was affordable during the trump administration its not affordable anymore and if the dems win housing will just continue to be un affordable. Its been 4 years and they have done nothing!

          They opened the boarder to replace you open your eyes man. No body does anything out of the kindness of their hearts.

          You voting for this current mess is the bicycle meme lol

          • tehn00bi@lemmy.world
            1·
            15 days ago

            Thank your buddy Putin for throwing the wheat prices off all over the globe. It’s not just the US that has felt inflation. But your head is so far up your ass you can’t recognize that.

          • Bytemeister@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            16 days ago

            Im not a republican!

            Press ‘X’ to doubt.

            Food prices inflated during the current administration, food was super affordable. What did Biden do to try and control inflation? Nothing could care less.

            Which grocery company does Biden run where he can decide to reduce the prices?

            Again housing was affordable during the trump administration its not affordable anymore and if the dems win housing will just continue to be un affordable. Its been 4 years and they have done nothing!

            As someone who had to look for housing 3 times during Trump’s administration: no, it wasn’t affordable.

            They opened the boarder to replace you open your eyes man.

            Who is “They”?

            No body does anything out of the kindness of their hearts.

            No shit. Is that why you are voting for the orange fascist?

            • NastyNative@mander.xyzEnglish
              27·
              16 days ago

              Then dont assume right and whats the point of assuming? I correct you and you still doubt it lol ok I see why you want to vote for “Them”.

              Which grocery store does trump own cause he had way better prices.

              But you found a home now its unaffordable 80% increase in the last 4 years. Thanks Biden you the best!

              They are them!

              Im voting for my interest not against it!

              • Bytemeister@lemmy.worldEnglish
                31·
                16 days ago

                Who is “They” again?

                Grocery prices were “good” during the end of the trump admin because grocery purchases were waaaay down during the global pandemic. Are you saying you’d prefer a global pandemic to paying hiked up prices for eggs?

                I actually bought my first home this year, whaddya know.

        • NastyNative@mander.xyzEnglish
          223·
          17 days ago

          Trump was already president and it was the best 4 years for Americans. Everything started to suck when Biden became president and Trump warned us that this would happen. Prices for everything inflated homes are only for huge corps to purchase yeah great great administration. They were better under trump and thats a fact. I’m not looking to make history with a women president I’m looking to make money for my future self and family.

          • jj4211@lemmy.world
            2·
            17 days ago

            The ‘everything started to suck’ came with COVID, not with a presidential administration. To the extent that inflation and everything ultimately got away from us, that started mostly under Trump’s watch, but even then I don’t think I can blame Trump for the bad economy stuff, except maybe the degree to which he escalated trade war with China, but Biden has been happy to continue it. I don’t see Trump or the GOP willing to go against those huge corps for the sake of the common man, generally I see quite the opposite.

            • NastyNative@mander.xyzEnglish
              26·
              17 days ago

              We cant tell the future, Im going by the past and what I experienced during the Trump administration.

          • the_brownie@lemm.eeEnglish
            6·
            17 days ago

            This take is so incredibly bad I’m almost thinking that you’re a troll. “Everything was good under Trump 😊” -> “Everything was bad under Biden 😡” therefore Trump good, Biden bad is probably the most juvenile and pathetic logical fallacy that persists in our shared political thought. I’m not sure if you remember, but there was a little thing called COVID that happened which shocked supply lines, trade, took a huge toll on our collective mental health, and created an economic crisis. Acting like Biden caused that is so ridiculous, I have a hard time believing that even you believe that.

            You could argue that Biden handled the recovery poorly (and I don’t think that’s a bad argument), but then you’d have to compare it with how Trump would have handled such a recovery – something we really don’t know. Given his contempt for the working class it is doubtful it would be any better, and there was plenty of room for it to be actively worse.

            • NastyNative@mander.xyzEnglish
              18·
              17 days ago

              Im going by past experience and the Trump administration was better for the American people. Shit sucks right now and it will continue this way with the current administration.

      • auzy@lemmy.world
        81·
        17 days ago

        Medicine? You mean like those handled by Obamacare which Trump wants to get rid of? From my understanding that was a huge change (here in Australia we have Medicare which is life changing and similar)

        Also, if you’re getting replaced by people from another country (who have a huge disadvantage), I’d argue maybe you need to work on improving yourself.

        That being said, she’s also increasing the minimum wage and taxing the rich more (whilst reducing tax for middle class and poor). So even minimum wage people are hugely better off.

        Trumps bs has caused issues internationally, even here in Australia. I don’t think you realise how much he is fucking things up for normal people worldwide

          • auzy@lemmy.world
            11·
            16 days ago

            If Trump wins, I’d be happy to have political refugees from the US personally

            And it actually affects us too. All Trump’s shitty racism, bigotry, anti vaccine agenda is being reinforced worldwide because he’s an idiot. And he’s showing our absolutely crap political parties what they can get away with (and they’re using him as an example).

            For our military, don’t forget, he’s giving away confidential military secrets too (I have a friend in the military, and he is putting her at risk).

            This is bigger than the US. It doesn’t affect me as much, but i also have friends in the US

            Also I’m fairly sure I could get a job in the US and residency if i wanted

    • Random Dent@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      16 days ago

      I’ve been saying for a while, George W. Bush is the one who took the door off its hinges and sold it, Trump is just the inevitable crackhead who walked in and started living in the kitchen.

  • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
    325·
    18 days ago

    Even Dems agree Trump will likely pull out of Ukraine. Trump seems like his battle with China will be over tariffs, and less military-focused than the Dem Sinophobia. Though of course, Trump will also continue writing a blank check to Israel.

    That’s two less escalation fronts with nuclear armed superpowers under Trump. The Dems are measurably closer to an extinction level threat.

    But realistically we need to topple both capitalist parties to save humanity.

  • aLaStOr_MoOdY47@lemmy.world
    450·
    17 days ago

    So much fearmongering. I’m new to Lemmy, and it seems to me that the Kamala campaign has infected Lemmy as well, just like they have Reddit. Looks like I’m not safe from leftist echochambers even after switching to Lemmy.

    • sudoer777@lemmy.ml
      23·
      17 days ago

      If supporting Kamala is your definition of a leftist echochamber you clearly haven’t browsed Lemmy much

        • Binette@lemmy.ml
          10·
          17 days ago

          Leftists on lemmygrad and hexbear don’t support Kamala. You’re on lemmy.world tho so I don’t blame you for not knowing.

            • Binette@lemmy.ml
              6·
              17 days ago

              There are a lot of Lemmy instances (or lemmies) out there. I don’t even know how many my self 😅.

              Each instances are characterized by their set of rules and moderation styles. You can see them through join-lemmy.org/instances as well as their description. To see a user’s instance, just look at the domain after their username and the @.

              Usually each instances can decide if they want to be able to interact with users and communities from a certain instance. That’s called being federated.

              Sometimes tho they don’t think an instance’s userbase or community follows their rules, so they can decide to cut all interactions with them. That’s called being defederated.

              The instance you are on, lemmy.world, is ironically, very US centered, and is the most popular instance. It’s defederated from hexbear.net and lemmygrad.ml, so you will never see posts from them on lemmy.world unless it’s a screenshot or something.

              Since I’m on lemmy.ml tho, I can see posts from lemmy.world, hexbear and lemmygrad.

              The benifit of this is that each instance can curate their experience how they see fit. If you think a moderator is being too trigger-happy on an instance, or you don’t agree on how lenient they are (or whatever other reason), you can migrate to another instance. So let’s say you want to go to lemmy.ml (which I highly doubt you would, but just an example), you go into your account settings, export your data, create your lemmy.ml account and import it. Currently it doesn’t support importing comments, but the devs are working on it.

              I’m not the best at explaining things, but I’m sure !newtolemmy@lemmy.ca could help.

                • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
                  1·
                  17 days ago

                  They left out one other important thing - like how you can see and interpret with users on other instances, each instance also has its own communities, and the community names are also @ whichever server hosts them. For example, there are multiple politics communities.

                  And groups hosting a Lemmy instances range from the Lemmy devs to a bunch of tankies to instances like the one I’m from, which is run by a group called SDF that’s been around since the 80s and had its start as a dialup anime BBS.

          • Irremarkable@fedia.io
            5·
            17 days ago

            Hell, a large portion of us outside of grad and hexbear don’t exactly like Harris. Sure is a helluva lot better than a bald faced fascist though.

    • turtletracks@lemmy.zip
      16·
      17 days ago

      Fearmongering? The republican presidential candidate talked about using the national guard / military on “radical leftists”/“the enemy within”. If that’s not a threat/fascism, what is?

    • BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.ukEnglish
      92·
      17 days ago

      What exactly were you expecting when you shifted to the Reddit alternative whose main developers were communist? You’re either clueless or a bot.

      • aLaStOr_MoOdY47@lemmy.world
        219·
        17 days ago

        If you read my comment, I said I’m new here. That is my first ever comment here. How was I supposed to know that the website was being ran by tankies? I’ve jumped from the frying pan into the fire. I can’t escape far leftists. And they want to put a communist and a known warmonger in office. We’re so cooked.

      • blackn1ght@feddit.uk
        51·
        17 days ago

        In their defence why would you expect them to know about the political stance of the devs?

        • BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.ukEnglish
          2·
          17 days ago

          Honestly, I think they’re a troll account. In general Lemmy took a bit more effort for me personally to sign up to vs Reddit, I had to figure out an instance and roughly how it worked before signing up and the political stance of the devs came up. I mostly assumed most people went through a similar process.

  • Kyrgizion@lemmy.world
    75·
    18 days ago

    Erdogan once said “democracy is a bus we ride until we reach our destination”. I feel major similar vibes from the GOP.

  • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
    14·
    17 days ago

    The civil servant job thing is an insurance plan disguised as job security. It would enable Trump to fill the bureaucracy with loyal stooges who will keep doing his bidding during the next administration - like his House cronies did when he told them not to pass the bipartisan border security bill so he could use the border as his main campaign issue.

    • andros_rex@lemmy.world
      4·
      17 days ago

      His appointees from the last go round are already still fucking things up. If you’ve tried to interact with the legal system or any regulatory agency, there basically is none. For everything from DHS to FOIA, the government is and has not functioning in many southern states.

  • newenlightened@lemmy.world
    292·
    17 days ago

    it’s an extinction level event for a lot of things. we’re already out of time on so many important issues. every living creature on this earth should consider him a threat. we are in self defense mode, or at least we should be. sadly, most of you don’t seem to understand how dire the situation really is.

    but whatever. stick your head back in the sand i guess.

      • JesseoftheNorth@lemmy.world
        62·
        17 days ago

        Are you ready to take the fight to the streets? Because that’s likely what it’ll come down to. Voting won’t save you. The constitution is only a flimsy piece of paper. Start organizing now.

      • Quadhammer@lemmy.world
        81·
        17 days ago

        Well start by voting. Vote local, vote often and make your voice heard. Then maybe try to reduce your carbon footprint. You really need a cultural shift for this to be effective. Yes yes I know businesses are the major polluters so I revert back to sentence one, vote, and continue to try to shift the culture to a more renewable one

        • Anti-Face Weapon@lemmy.world
          92·
          17 days ago

          Ok, I vote in every single election, including every primary. I drive seldom, use public transportation often, eat meat only twice a week, and encourage other people to adopt socially and environmentally forward beliefs.

          Do you really think this is enough? I don’t, but there is only so much one person can do.

  • TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world
    64·
    18 days ago

    I don’t know exactly how bad a second Trump term would be, but I’d really rather not find out. At best it will be embarrassing and absurd, at worst it would be devastating and catastrophic for countless millions, both inside and outside the US.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    433·
    17 days ago

    Chomsky was right when he properly pointed out that Republicans are the biggest threat to the world.

    Donnie is merely a symptom. No Republicans ever should be allowed to hold any office.

    • NostraDavid@programming.dev
      2·
      17 days ago

      I would argue that the Republicans are a symptom as well, the whole USA democratic structure will only enable a 2-party system. The whole systemic structure is rotten.

  • conorm@feddit.uk
    457·
    18 days ago

    extinction-level threat to the dregs honestly, it’s a shame there isn’t a politician with a right-wing social policy and a left-wing economic policy, because that is the gold the world needs

  • TrumpIsNotARepublican@lemmy.world
    21·
    17 days ago

    I made these pictures because I don’t think that arguments like “Trump is a threat to democracy” are something his supporters agree with. Maybe people could share these things in groups they know in these last couple days before the election.

      • JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee
        3·
        17 days ago

        Really? Because I recall the first woman hung in Salem for witchcraft was hung because being unable to say the Lord’s prayer in english(she spoke gaelic) means you’re a witch.

        I wonder which one is canonically correct? Can the devil say bible words or not? Or is it specifically the lords prayer? Because if that’s it then we can prove we ARENT the devil.

        I hate religious rhetoric so much. My brain hurts now trying to make it make sense.

    • barsquid@lemmy.world
      31·
      18 days ago

      Oh here campaigning for Repubs all the way to the end, huh? “Both sides are colluding, Dems don’t reverse Repub policies! Therefore give up and allow as many Repub policies as we can.”

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
        42·
        18 days ago

        How did you read any of that from my comment?

        I’m just pointing out that fascism doesn’t go away just because Trump is gone.

        • barsquid@lemmy.world
          1·
          17 days ago

          I’ve seen a lot of comments about the Dems deliberately colluding with Repubs to continue deeper into fascism and assumed yours was one of those.

    • FatCrab@lemmy.one
      8·
      18 days ago

      If he loses, I think we see the fractures in the republican party really start to cascade even more than they have since the last election. It’ll still be a stewpot of regressive, reactionary, fascist fellating bullshit, but their goose stepping will be out of sync.

      Meanwhile, a collapse of the Republican part opens the door for a likewise restructuring of the Democratic party, which has for decades now been a big tent party for people who aren’t braindead, but is otherwise pretty ideideologically disparate. And before you wah wah wah FPTP, keep in mind that all RCV initiatives in the US have arisen out of Democratic party affiliated groups.

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
        32·
        18 days ago

        That didn’t happen last time. Instead, everyone tried to become the new Trump and take up the mantle. They failed because the real Trump was still running, but without him they’ll be able to adapt.

        Although they’ll struggle to draw in voters the way Trump does. People like Trump because he’s an “outsider”. A new outsider can totally emerge to take up the mantle once Trump is not sucking all the oxygen out of the room.

        Or who knows. Maybe once Trump is defeated everything will go back to normal. 👍