The idea wasn't that the US = Ethiopia.

But, we should be careful that because the US is a long-standing democracy that the qualitative nature of it can't be eroded.

Obviously it's much easier to erode standards and norms in places like Ethiopia. I don't discount those factors.

All my post meant to suggest was the following: there are historical precedence for places that have had elections -- genuinely competitive multi-party elections -- that later backslid into autocracy.

And *not* in the caricatured way of a military coup, or SS soldiers beating up political opponents, or Stalinist show-elections where the Communist Party gets 99%. Feels like lots of Americans are waiting for that before generating concern. What Ethiopia is: an example of a country where the ruling party reached power and then simply re-wrote the rules on elections so that they couldn't lose it regardless of the results. Then they more or less let business continue as usual (although there's definitely chaos and street violence around their elections in 2010, 2014) where campaigning and elections continued but in the end, you see banana republic results where 30% of voters got .001% of parliamentary representation.

In any case -- there are other African countries that followed similar patterns. It's an (admittedly premature, cynical) parallel to the US: autocratic, undemocratic leaders in some places in Africa, like Ethiopia, aren't crushing the opposition party with draconian measures and they're not cancelling elections and they're not outwardly rigging the results. They're just written the rules to make the results not reflect popular will and functionally disenfranchise voters.

Of course you're correct to point out the scale and scope factors are not parallel, but that the mechanisms of installing permanent minority rule remain. Forgetting Ethiopia, it's fair to reinforce the core point: Republicans control an incredible amount of power for a political faction that is ultimately not that popular. I don't think we're in total dire straits like Ethiopia but if the rule bending, subversion and then ultimate rejiggering of the electoral system (e.g.: entrench the Electoral College, apportion votes by Congressional districts; Gerrymander the **** out of districts; depress turnout and wage vast disenfranchisement campaigns) continues unabated it's probably worth asking some of these meta questions. Donald Trump got something on the order of 25% of eligible American voters to vote for him. House Republican cumulative vote totals were similar, about 150k more votes than Trump, or about 25% of the eligible population. Accumulate 2012-2016 vote totals, Democrats have received 17 million more votes for their Senate candidates than Republicans. Yet the GOP controls the chamber.

Some of this is just baked into the system. But that's the point. It's systemic. And the GOP trying to bake ever more into it. When you are the beneficiary of some 230 year old historical accidents, maybe that's fine and just how it goes. When you seek to entrench more laws, Rube Goldberg vote counting schemes, and burdens to vote to ensure minority rule, and you do it, you're on the way to a political cultural that only has rudimentary but not practical democratic features, e.g. we have elections but whatever, showing up to vote is hard if you're black and your votes don't really get you much power anyway because congressional districts were drawn up to jam you in with 100% other Democrats so the GOP could win every other district in the state, and oh, maybe coming soon, we'll count up Presidential votes that way too.

So this ain't Reagan '84, the GOP didn't wallop the Democrats by 20 million votes. And I'm not preening over mandates. But when ~46% of the ~55% of people get to steamroll everyone due to how your system operates, maybe sticking fingers in our ears and saying "well, democracy" isn't enough and merits more attention. And that was 2016. Let's see what 2020 and 2024 look like after the GOP is in power for a while. I expect they'll be clever and the game will move to something like the GOP more than 45% of eligible voters but they'll work on that other number and get ~55% of eligible voters down to 50% or less showing up. They know 2016 is a little ham-handed and that their schemes to calculate votes differently like gerrymandering are ultimately limited, and the way to really fool people into winning a lot of power and look good doing it is to depress turnout. You can feel how badly Trump and the others want those popular vote wins. They'll pull the wool over a lot more people's eyes with their 'common sense' new burdens to stop fantasy fraud, doing away with early voting, having the courts roll back the Voting Rights acts or just having Sessions not bother enforcing them, etc. etc.

In case case, the summary: I'm not saying we're there yet, but at some point you have to look at these factors and ask yourself the qualitative nature of American democracy if one party seeks not only to perpetuate that kind of electoral system where a smaller percentage of people are given total power at all levels of government but is successful in doing it.

DVaut once and always the goat. You need to start a blog man

Lolololol if you think he will curtail trumps executive power.

I feel all nice and warm after reading this.

Not sure how corporate power is protected if Trump is seeking to be more protectionist with his tariffs to protect local manufacturing jobs?

I would have thought that it would have been in America's corporate interests for its big companies to be able to keep using unfettered cheaper labour both overseas and within the country with its use of foreign, illegal Mexican workers (that the building of this wall seeks to diminish).

"Trump doesn't have the right to nominate a SCOTUS judge in the last year of his presidency" is a way better version of this joke.

THAT'S what you're focusing on in that list???? Jesus ****ing Christ.

In any event, corporate power is solidified by the repeal of regulations, allowing companies to do whatever the **** they want with regard to labour, the environment, etc. Which is the reason they went overseas in the first place.

Interesting argument, but it loses me at the bolded because I don't think it is factually correct wrt the US.

Trump didn't get elected because the ruling party rewrote the rules. Gerrymandering has been going on for 3 centuries in this country by both sides, it isn't a recent development.

Trump won for a number of reasons but primarily (from a structural POV) Wyoming has more clout per capita in the Electoral College than California. That is not a result of Gerrymandering or the changing of the rules by the party in power it is the conscious result of the actions of great political theorists in 1788.

You conveniently forget in 2009 your tribe had a complete stranglehold on the executive and both branches of the legislature on the federal level and within a few years they lost all three not because of Gerrymandering (the state borders weren't changed for the senate races), but because the policies of the party in power became relatively less popular than the alternative.

Thusly, I do not believe your argument is particularly strong.

Also demeaning the result because Trump got ~ 25% of eligible voters is a little silly because HRC got 26%?

We don't live in a pure democracy and that was by design and not by accident. It has served this country pretty well in my opinion over the fullness of time.

The system can be changed, but in my opinion that will be a pretty hard sell.

Instead of trying to re-jigger the system, maybe figuring out why many Obama voters from 2008 either didn't show up or switched teams in Fl, OH, MI, WI and PA and voted for a personally despicable fellow.

Hint: it isn't because they became racist between 2008 and 2016.

Spoiler: Trump isn't actually going to do anything about illegal workers.

2,900,000

Yeah I mean, for all the "POPULAR VOTE DOESNT MATTER!!!" button mashing, let's not forget a majority of the people in the country still voted for a party that now controls nothing. Seems flawed.

Out here at the air force base and while waiting to get checked in overhear some guys talking bout the SC nomination. One dude starts with "Obama got all of his picks, Trump deserves the same". Then he starts tearing apart Graham and McCain saying that they have investments in ISIS. Something something Soros. Get back out to the truck and see this dude got Hillary for prison, Trump/Pence, and Infowars stickers all over the back of his truck.

Also, maybe it's time to back off from "the Founders were political geniuses" a bit.

Their political genius is supposedly that the Constitution would prevent a tyrant or autocrat from taking power. As far as I can tell, that's pretty dependent on the people in power observing nonwritten rules and customs.

Let's see where things stand in a couple years, maybe then I'll be ready to hail their great genius.

I'm obviously no scholar but didn't they give everyone the right to armed revolution against the gov? May be the only thing that could stop a tyrant/lying bigoted bastard.

Read something about the lying bigoted bastard questioning the strong $$, didn't really understand it tbh....

Would this lead to me getting my 20% back I lost on every ££? And will I be able to buy cheaper $$ for summer holiday?

https://www.ft.com/content/67be8118-...c-f253db7791c6

The American myth that the founders were geniuses and infallible is the same idiotic logic that leads people think a book written 2,000 years ago should be used to guide modern morality. The founders had no way of conceiving of modern life so to think they could account for it in their documents is idiotic. This is why the consititutional interpretations of Scalia and now Gorsuch are so dumb. To think people living in the 1780s would write perfect law for the 21st century is just plain bat****.

Maybe the founders weren't that smart and the US has just been on a 200 year heater? Could we be the Jerry Yang of superpowers?

I mean why is it a 200 year heater? FREEDOM??? Last 50 years - sure, okay kind of I guess. But for a substantial chunk of that history black people were slaves, women couldn't vote, and today there is a greater concentration of military-protected wealth than at any time in the history of the world.

Def a sick heater for landowning classes. Regular people including (gasp!) minorities and women? Hard to say it's been a beacon of light.

Good take on the ban by Sam Harris - https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/...the-muslim-ban

Yeah, one of the things the last ~year has clarified for me is how much large organizations of humans rely on myths in order to cooperate. There is a great book "Sapiens" that discusses this in detail.

This seems like a pretty unfair criticism of the founders!

It says something that when I see something like this from the POTUS I think nothing of it.

Hamilton needs a bit of shade thrown at him. His Electoral College completely ****ing backfired and his rhymes are weak.

The Roman Republic lasted around 500 years and eventually collapsed under the weight of flaws in the system that had been there all along. The Bolsheviks went about 60 years in Russia and rose to become one of the world's only two superpowers, this was not because totalitarian Communism was a genius system. The US has had substantial advantages (geographical location, vast amounts of fertile land, etc) that have helped it on its way.

The Founders were smart people and the US system is a pretty good design, but the success of the US over the last 200 years is not evidence that the system is devoid of any flaws.

The whole slavery and stealing huge swathes of land with incredible amounts of natural resources thing helped a lot. "Land of the Free" is a lie we tell kids so we can feel better about ourselves at this point.

Good take by Sam.

Many here will disagree but I enjoy most of Sam's podcast episodes. His recent one with Lawrence Wright was especially good though that's in part due to the fact that Wright is a very interesting person imo.

I don't agree with everything but he at least makes me reevaluate my opinions after hearing him.