2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumpnwmom
(108,980 posts)Gidney N Cloyd
(19,841 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)and planning steps to unhitch their wellbeing to various degrees from our actions. Trumpism has already done great harm.
jalan48
(13,870 posts)I don't think Western Civilization is on the line, just the decline of American Imperialism.
Bucky
(54,027 posts)Through a quick google, this is best summary I could find.
https://leftishruminating.wordpress.com/2014/04/16/does-size-matter-montesquieu-and-the-american-republic/
Here's Monte's words explaining (from here)
There are three species of government; republican, monarchical, and despotic. In order to discover their nature, it is sufficient to recollect the common notion, which supposes three definitions, or rather three facts: That a republican government is that in which the body or only a part of the people is possessed of the supreme power: monarchy, that in which a single person governs by fixed and established laws: a despotic government, that in which a single person directs every thing by his own will and caprice.
and
The more extensive the empire, the larger the seraglio; and consequently the more voluptuous the prince. Hence the more nations such a sovereign has to rule, the less he attends to the cares of government; the more important his affairs, the less he makes them the subject of his deliberations.
and
Institutions of this kind {that promote simple, free lives for citizens} may be proper in republics, because they have virtue for their principle: but, to excite men to honour, in monarchies, or to imprint fear, in despotic governments, less pains are necessary.
Besides, they cannot take place but in a small state, in which there is a possibility of a general education, and of training up the body of the people like a single family.
The laws of Minos, of Lycurgus, and of Plato, suppose a particular attention and care which the citizens ought to have over one anothers conduct. But an attention of this kind cannot be expected in the confusion and multitude of affairs in which a large nation is intangled.
jalan48
(13,870 posts)It seems like the USA has made a major shift in our collective thinking about what a President should be. We've never seen a candidate like Trump. One who openly lies and fabricates stories to serve his immediate needs with impunity. Just a few years ago someone like Trump would have been ushered off the stage. I believe, as a nation we have shifted into accepting a despot-Trump and people like him could be our future. It's what American's want-an entertainment candidate.
even uncivilized areas.
Dalziel3979
(72 posts)CBHagman
(16,986 posts)My feelings are tempered by the fact that we have three branches of government and it's harder than people believe to actually create changes.
LAS14
(13,783 posts)... a president who decides to ignore the other two branches. Remember the Nazis.
tblue37
(65,408 posts)well as a majority of the state governments' executive, legislative, and judicial branches as well. That totally undermines the checks and balances everyone desperately hopes will protect us.
Response to LAS14 (Original post)
LAS14 This message was self-deleted by its author.
airplaneman
(1,239 posts)Yes I believe we are in decline if not just for destroying our own habitat with climate change but also money and income inequality slowly destroying us from within. We will have numerous crisis followed by periods of stability but the decline is in process I believe.
A species that moves out into the stars in not in our destiny.
-Airplane
First Speaker
(4,858 posts)...there have been two supreme crises of liberal democracy in US history: The Civil War, and the Depression/World War Two. (The Cold War might be regarded as a long coda to the latter.) Two great leaders, Lincoln and FDR, got us thru them. Well, memories of the second crisis are fading, and liberal democracy is under threat again all over the world. Putin, the Chinese system, even Brexit in Britain, and authoritarianism rearing its ugly head again in Hungary and Poland. And of course, the GOP in the US, with the "conservative" movement as its shock troops. They have a one-party mentality, and the only reason they don't show it more in public is that they don't have the guts. Well, that's changed. The conservatives have come out of the closet and nominated the strongman of their dreams. Even if Trump loses, Trumpism, and the GOP, will continue along in its authoritarian way. If he wins...God help us. It would be a sign that liberal democracy is on the brink of failing in the US. Well--we have no reason to complain. Jefferson put it best: eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. That vigilance can lapse; liberty can be lost. There are no guarantees. The American Revolution might yet be a failure.
NastyRiffraff
(12,448 posts)The entire world is at risk if Trump somehow manages to win (I can hardly bear to type those words).
Shankapotomus
(4,840 posts)conservative and far-right ideologies groaning their last gasps.
I think if it weren't for them, the world would be fine.
LAS14
(13,783 posts)bettyellen
(47,209 posts)Their bullshit wedge issues could become unfightable.
packman
(16,296 posts)I was taught in school.
wickerwoman
(5,662 posts)Everything since then has been rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
The only thing the American political system does well these days is perpetuate a two-party system that more or less guarantees genuine reform will never even be on the table.
I think ALL of civilization is on the line.
AgadorSparticus
(7,963 posts)Grown2Hate
(2,013 posts)"moldy orange peanut granted sentience", "billionaire Crème brûlée colostomy bag", pumpkin pie filling reanimated by the River Styx"... and the list goes on.
However, I describe him using two words:
EXISTENTIAL THREAT. Period.
So... yes. Let's defeat this mother fucker.
Maru Kitteh
(28,341 posts)tblue37
(65,408 posts)same direction before it finally falls over, but it is already dead.
(The image comes from The Floating Opera, by John Barth. I often use it to describe my evaluation of the health of civilization, because I think it fits very well.)
I do think with Trump at the helm, the final collapse would be hastened, though.
France and Germany (and probably Canada) will be fine regardless.
Only the U.S. is at stake. (and maybe Mexico)
LAS14
(13,783 posts)dawg
(10,624 posts)I don't think those countries have anywhere near the percentage of voters willing to back an authoritarian candidate that we have.
remaineruk
(156 posts)The right wingers have always been in the UK. It was much worse in the 1970s tbh. The way our system is structured and the complicated factions within our political parties it is extremely unlikely someone like trump would ever get very far. Ignore Farage. He is generally detested.
vlyons
(10,252 posts)As someone who practices Tibetan Buddhism, I think about the prophesies of Padmasambhava (http://templemind.blogspot.com/2012/03/shocking-prophecies-made-by.html). Many of his prophesies seem to be coming true. Personally, I feel like we are in a great moral struggle, as great as the struggle against slavery or the struggles over colonialism/nationalism/Fascism/communism. Actually the struggle against colonialism/nationalism/Fascism/communism are still ongoing. The version of our time is a struggle against the corruption of corporate greed and racism and oligarchy. We fight for universal human rights and against greed, ignorance, and hatred. As climate change advances, more people will be displaced and food prices will escalate. People will be pitted against one another and fight over water resources and arable land. That's what I see.
left-of-center2012
(34,195 posts)paleotn
(17,931 posts)The American Empire? Yes. It's beginning to crumble from within, like most great empires before it.
Orsino
(37,428 posts)We keep getting by, barely, but time's running out for caretaker presidencies. We need to start swinging for the fences.
CJohnson_LS
(52 posts)Electing a buffoon like Trump will only prove to the rest of the world that the so-called superiority of Western Civilization and its values is nothing but propaganda. We'll be back to the GWB days where the world saw America and the West as a bunch of jokers and frauds.
BSdetect
(8,998 posts)What a good idea.
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)Could have fooled the rest of the world!! Don't you mean capitalist global dominance and Hollywood cultural pollution?
What would be on the line is a nation state known for its military dominance of the world to support a flawed, unsustainable economic order of taking more than its share of global resources and not much giving a shit about the rest of the world because freedom, but I doubt any of the political actors of import would let that change very much. Not that they have much say about it when the global plutocrats are the ones who keep it propped up at whatever cost to anything that interferes with their interests, including democracies like Brazil or the USA.
LAS14
(13,783 posts)... that Hillary won the debate, I'll put a teaspoon of sand on the "good" side of the scale.
Osakagreg
(111 posts)It's really important this election, because Trump is so unqualified and dangerous.
Somehow we need to put an end to all the ridiculous non-factual information that circulates. It has polarized America in a dangerous way.