3 upvotes, 6 direct replies (showing 6)
View submission: Casual Questions Thread
This may be a bit of a long winded question, but it's something I've had on my mind with Colorado's Supreme Court removing Trump from its ballot:
I ask this because Trump has very clear anti-democratic tendencies. He's promised vengeance against opponents, he promises mass deportations with questionable conditions for those awaiting deportation, he has celebrated the overturning of Roe v. Wade which has led to multiple high profile cases of women being denied abortions, he promised to be a dictator on his first day, he has promised a return of fairly disliked policies such as stop and frisk, he's expressed interest in withdrawing from NATO while he's cozied up to dictators like Kim Jung Un and Putin, he has called those who disagree with him vermin who need to be rooted out, and he's said immigrants are "poisoning our country's blood".
I say all that before even mentioning his part in the January 6th 2020 riot and how he waited for hours to put in any effort to stop it, going so far as to tell those who were begging him to that the rioters were more angry than Kevin McCarthy was.
I say all that not to insult Trump, but to simply point out that he has some very fascist qualities and by his own admission wants to at least start his next term as a dictator. Despite America being a representative democracy with citizens that allegedly wants to stay a democracy, Trump is winning in the general election polls and some states are looking for ways to stop his seemingly inevitable rise back into power.
Should states be able to stop him?
On the one hand, America is at its core attempting to be a democracy. A great beacon on the hill where the will of the people created a government by the people for the people. We are not supposed to acquiesce to dictators and in fact our constitution put in multiple safeguards against cult of personality folks. It's why we have so many veto points and there are abilities to overrule tyrants with measures such as the 2/3 majority veto override in government. One would think our government should be able to stop the rise of folks who are using hatred and anger to propel themselves into power so they can use that power to unilaterally shape the nation as they see fit (which I'd argue the GOP is trying to do with Trump and Project 2025).
On the other hand Trump is the choice to run the US of the majority of people in the US at least as of my writing this. He is consistently beating Biden in most general election polls, be them battleground state polls, or nationwide polls. Clearly (at least as of now) America's citizens *want* Trump's more iron-fisted rule than Biden's slower, more gentle approach. Stripping the majority of Americans of their choice is itself anti-democratic, even if it's allegedly done to save democracy.
I'm not sure what the better option here is. If we were Germany, should we stop the rise of Hitler even if most of our citizens think he's the best choice to rule the nation? Which is better? Stripping half the citizens of their right to pick who they want to rule them, or forcing the other half to endure the potentially brutal authoritarian regime promised by said pick for leader? It feels like the only real outcome here is war as either side will feel an incredible level of oppression if they lose.
Comment by bl1y at 27/12/2023 at 15:22 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Is it justifiable for a democratic country to prevent its citizens from electing an openly fascist leader?
You then go on to list a whole bunch of things, none of which support the assertion that Trump is "openly fascist." They're mostly just disagreements about policies.
Comment by [deleted] at 25/12/2023 at 02:52 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Is it justifiable for a democratic country to prevent its citizens from electing an openly fascist leader?
The problem here is that once you set that precedent, you can't put that genie back in its bottle.
Say you do this. Now it's legal to stop anyone considered "undemocratic" from running for office. Who decides what qualifies as "undemocratic ideals"? What's to stop political leaders from declaring anyone they consider a rival from being "unemocratic" or "openly fascist" (since the word fascist gets thrown around with such frequency it might as well be meaningless at this point) just to stop them fron running?
In doing this to prevent one dicator from getting elected, you could very easily be putting a gun in the hands of the next one.
Comment by LorenzoApophis at 23/12/2023 at 00:43 UTC
7 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Pretty clearly yes, I think, because it's written into the Constitution that candidates can be removed for having done what he did. It simply doesn't make sense to disregard the words of the highest law in the country when it contains a remedy for precisely this situation. The Constitution doesn't change or stop applying because some people would be upset about its effects. To do so would be a far worse precedent and far more anti-democratic.
Comment by CuriousDevice5424 at 22/12/2023 at 00:05 UTC*
5 upvotes, 1 direct replies
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Comment by zlefin_actual at 21/12/2023 at 22:32 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Yes it's justifiable; but what do you mean exactly? Do you mean 'justifiable' or 'ethically correct'? Because those two seem a bit different to me. Though I don' tthink it changes the answer; any more than it changes the answer to "should a majority be allowed to infringe upon the rights of a minority".
Do you mean should a government be able to bar its people from electing who they want in any way at all?
note: it's not a majority that currently support Trump in polling, it's a plurality, and an uncertain one at that.
Do you want an answer from a deontological standpoint? Or from a consequentialist standpoint? Or some other? There are numerous theories of ethics, and without agreeing on a specific one for purposes of argument, it's hard to say whether or not it's "right" to do so.
Comment by pluralofjackinthebox at 21/12/2023 at 20:42 UTC
2 upvotes, 2 direct replies
The paradox of tolerance states that if a society's practice of tolerance is inclusive of the intolerant, intolerance will ultimately dominate, eliminating the tolerant and the practice of tolerance with them. Karl Popper describes the paradox as arising from the seemingly self-contradictory idea that, in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance.