The election outcome itself was the consequence of gross, systemic failure throughout the entirety of the United States' citizenry, society, institutions, and government.
The best thing for the States to do at this point would be to hold a Constitutional Convention and dissolve the government of the United States as unfit for any purpose, after which their citizens can decide how they wish to proceed.
Have you seen countries without a government? The US government is definitely fit for purpose. It successfully keeps order, for one thing. The government in a representative government isn't the problem, the people are the problem. In this case we have an intransigent Left and an incompetent Right wanting not-Left. Both sides want to "win", and in that situation, everybody loses. I think the ancient Greeks called this "stasis", and if the polis couldn't get out of stasis, the state failed. I believe the failure modes were either getting conquered or getting a tyrant. But we could choose to work together.
The United States have governments. Fifty of them, plus various territorial and tribal governments. The States have already successfully done away with failing higher government twice before, and can do so again.
The issue is entirely om the right side here. This is simply not both side issu. America has far right party and center party. It keeps to blame left whenever its far right push for own goals.
The anti democratic and heavily corrup republicam goverment is product of right wing bubble. It has little to do with left.
I mean the US republican party is the biggest problem, but the democratic party is far from blameless and are happy to go along with many of the republicans worst policies, so long as they are able to try and shift blame back when people complain.
They try a little more maybe, but are still completely insulated from and out of touch with average citizens. But they don't care because they have money and most US problems are only problems for people without money to spare.
I dont know why people keep repeating this. The US Democrats pursue left wing policy. Not left wing policy in America, left wing policy period. The US is behind other countries so the fights are taking place on battles that have already been won in other places but that doesnt make them a center party. We could use that logic to undermine any left wing government in the world.
That was essentially the advice given by Benjamin Franklin, although he suggested turning it off and then on again before a Despot appears otherwise it would be inevitable that a Despot would appear.
Going back to the drawing board after watching some major issues break the country is how we got this constitution in the first (second) place. The founders clearly suggested this as an intentional pressure valve to avoid the terrible catastrophe that is civil war or the dissolution of the union.
When values diverge in such extreme ways (values, not politics or preferences) it is very hard to continue to see each other as fellow citizens working toward some shared future. Mix in severe inequality and a broken, corrupt justice system and there is a very real sense of impending escalation. With the failure of the judicial and legislative branches to control corruption, we might be risking everything by NOT trying to find new middle ground.
There was a pew research poll in March [0] showing half of Americans think people in the opposing political party are morally bad people, not just people with different views or priorities. People openly tell each other they are "ruining the country" over things like "should the US spend tax money helping illegal immigrants in any way" or "should trans people have the same rights as they were born with" or "should the government protect known pedophiles from consequences" or "should women have to put their life on the line carrying a rape pregnancy to full term" or "should there be investigations when protesters are shot and killed by immigration agents" or "should the president be above the law". Both sides think their take on these questions is the only reasonable one and anyone on the other side is either delusional or downright evil.
Last time values diverged until the breaking point was because a huge chunk of people were willing to die in order to keep owning other people and another huge chunk of people were willing to die to prevent it. The resulting war caused more American deaths than all the others combined. Despite this, plenty of people still proudly fly the rebel flag today.
Another continental Congress to reauthor (renegotiate?) the Union is a monumental undertaking that is extremely dangerous for the stability of the country so it shouldn't be considered lightly. Civil war is far worse though so hopefully we can collectively navigate our way back to calmer waters.
I think, from your framing of the questions you are leaning towards opposition of the current administration and "ruling party". Which is obviously fine.
But what I am questioning is if, and if so, why, you think that a reboot would somehow produce an outcome that is closer to the values you seem to align with?
I really don't think that a "New Constitution" is going to come back and be kinder in the ways you are thinking. Most of the issues you touch on are things that have benefited from a liberal minority having an outsized representation in government. The majority of the US doesn't really share your views and the people that DO care about those issues are more politically active. Assuming something as major as a new constitution would get more people involved I just don't think it would go the way you are hoping.
>Last time values diverged until the breaking point was because a huge chunk of people were willing to die in order to keep owning other people and another huge chunk of people were willing to die to prevent it. The resulting war caused more American deaths than all the others combined. Despite this, plenty of people still proudly fly the rebel flag today.
This is also a wildly uninformed mischaracterization. The huge majority of the people that died, did not do so willingly, and had no interest in either maintaining or the abolition of slavery. Most people in the South had no slaves and most people in the North were not opposed to slavery in the South.
Do you assume the average soldier in the Vietnam war had a preseeded disdain for the NVA before being told to head off into the jungle?
Even your framing people disagree with. Imagine if it was this spin instead:
People openly tell each other they are "ruining the country" over things like "should the US import millions of illegal immigrants and provide for them over it's own citizens" or "should I be forced to deny biological realities around trans people" or "should the government protect known criminal illegals from consequences" or "should men have to put their life on the line for a country that hates them" or "should there be investigations when protesters are violently disrupting ICE operations" or "should we ignore SCOTUS rulings we don't like". Both sides think their take on these questions is the only reasonable one and anyone on the other side is either delusional or downright evil.
Dissolving the Constitutional government isn't a "middle ground". Rather it's exactly what the big-money supporters behind Trump have wanted from the start - whether it's big tech looking to become the domestic government, or other countries looking to take the US down a few pegs.
I agree that we likely need a few Constitutional amendments, but that is a far cry from dissolution.
The amendments I believe we need:
1. Ranked Pairs voting to break out of this lesser of two evils race to the bottom. Get rid of the Electoral College merely because it's straightforward rather than quibbling about out how it could work with non-plurality voting.
2. Independent executive agencies chartered by Congress. Heads of which are independent executives elected just like the President.
3. Triple the number of senators (reducing this effect of moribund "senior" senators that benfit their state due to pull). National elections run every year (we shouldn't have to wait until "midterms" to course correct, and would also diminish the stark divide between "election promises" and "results")
4. Repudiation of Citizens United, and this general nonsense that corpos possess the natural rights of individuals. (something similar might happen at the state level, as states are actually the governments that charter corpos to exist/operate in the first place)
5. Repudiation of Wickard v Filburn and followup decisions that have allowed the federal government to characterize everything as interstate commerce. The federal government should only be able to get involved when states have a disagreement.
The first two are the critical foundation. Note that the overall effect is for an individual's vote to be more than a single bit of information. The last three might not be strictly necessary, but relieve the pressure from the path dependence of where we're at.
All of those sound like helpful changes. There are plenty more that could push the system back toward supporting citizens and fairness and limited government power.
It sounds like the point here is "all we need is an honest and earnest legislative branch" and, yes, I agree that would help us get on the right track. Similarly, a judicial branch change of heart in the same way would really help relieve the anger and hopelessness people are feeling.
If you have ideas for how to actually make either of those happen they would be worth sharing and pushing forward.
I don't really get the gist of your response. Yes, if we had a more honest legislative, judicial, OR executive branch then we wouldn't be having this discussion. But instead we've got the very best politicians money can buy.
The same problem applies to picking drafters/representatives/etc for any Constitutional amendments. But I'd hope with the utter breakdown we're facing, there might be enough political will, plus amendments have to be short, plus making the issues meta enough that entrenched interests can't straightforwardly lobby loopholes into them, that maybe the barriers could be overcome.
My point is that we don't need to be talking about a wholesale dissolution of the government and rewrite of the Constitution when we can focus on some powerful meta-issues that have led us to this place. In fact I'd expect such a process to be much more beholden to the sway of corpo lobbyists as making a new system from whole cloth would have much more complexity for such things to hide.
Honestly, the worst case scenario I see is Grump becomes a lame duck after midterms, leaves office in Jan 2029, and then the entrenched Democrats go back to uninspired milquetoast business as usual.
Even not participating in elections have consecuences, at least for proper democratic countries.
But in countries where participation is mandatory, at least you can say that most of the (national) negatively affected people got what they voted for.
For improper "democratic" countries where elections are rigged or participation is biased towards some population sectors in a way or another, they are not really elections by the population.
yes and the results and actions taken after the Nov 6 US elections may undo some of the damage. But no other country will ever trust the foreign policy of the US no matter what happens.
There is the military saying "Once is an accident, twice is an attack", this is how a lot of folks see it.
I think it is deeper, that these actions were taken at the top and a sizable amount of the people sided with them, that sends the message that the US cannot be trusted long term, it has become cultural. I get that it isnt a majority of people but it is big enough that it cannot be ignored.
> yes and the results and actions taken after the Nov 6 US elections may undo some of the damage
You're assuming that 1) the elections will actually occur on Nov 6, 2) the elections will be fair, and 3) that the winners of said elections would take action and actually enforce the rule of law.
It will be interesting to see what happens. Many are hoping that there is a very strong turn out for the Democrat's so that any rigging cannot over come it, but this sounds like fan fiction to me. That said Trump hitting Iran may be the single biggest blunder of his political career, media influence can only go so far when there is a direct impact on all prices and potential stock availability in the coming months.
Hopefully a lot of the fears don't pan out but we won't know until it gets closer.
I'm not saying that there aren't better options but both major parties are complicit in how the system is organised. The US electoral system gets ever more distorted with every minor adjustment in the hopes of swinging various seats in their favour and now it just looks ridiculous.
This is the crux. Trump is simultaneously a wholesale departure from political norms, but also merely a culmination of decades of reactionary talk radio preaching "Death to America" but then backing it off just enough for people to go to the polls and vote for "their" candidate.
Trump's second term should be the end of the Republican party. But if Bush II is an indication, the pattern was that while people gradually came around to seeing what a bad idea the Iraq War was and whatnot, they merely cooled off for a few years but then were right back at it getting fooled again a slightly different way. How much of the support for Trump was basically recycled criticism of the Iraq War (ie of the Republican establishment) ? And yet here we are now, with a nice shiny new quagmire (assuming it isn't an outright loss).
fwiw I'm a libertarian so while I actually agree with much of the criticism, it galls me even more how people can start with very individual-liberty-centric criticisms, but then somehow gleefully jump behind supporting authoritarianism when it can be their turn at the trough.
I have regrets when I say something dumb or drive through an intersection on a not-quite-yellow light.
Innocent people, including children, are dead. Republicans have done irreparable harm to this country on every imaginable level: civil liberties, trade, global power, economics. Open and naked corruption is so off the charts it can only be described with comparisons to the post-Soviet era.
What exactly do they have deep regrets about, though? Do they regret voting for someone with his style? Do they regret empowering an obvious corrupt liar? Do they regret supporting someone who focuses on who to blame and hurt, rather than on things that might actually help (albeit in regrettably marginal ways in all three cases)?
Or do they just regret that they were fooled by this guy, specifically? That he's not accomplishing his stated goals, whether or not he is taking his promised actions? If it's this one, then it's only a matter of time before another charlatan does the same thing better.
Usually they regret him not being extreme enough. Being personally harmed to a very high level also works. The keyword is very high level, people are willing to take a lot of pain for someone they think is "jesus".
Through selfless deeds, hard work and admitting their failures to the fullest, for generations till now. Somehow I don't see that happening easily with american ego
They didn't tho. West Germany was still governed by ex Nazi politicians and bureaucrats after the war. This was the primary reason that the Red Army Faction formed and carried out its attacks.
The Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) was staffed by many ex SS officers.
Nuremberg Trails are continuously trotted out as an example of a system that works, but 200k people are estimated to have participated in crimes against humanity, of which only around 6700 were convicted, or 3.3%.
It is wild seeing the elctorial maps of Germany and you can almost exactly recreate the East-West split. Decades later and it is coming back to haunt them.
Tbf, the east/west split is the one part that wasn’t the Nazis’ fault unless indirectly as a consequence of starting and losing a second World War in a row.
I don’t think November 6 is going to be a reprieve. They have rigged the system so much that I don’t think it’s actually possible for the Democrats to make a comeback.
Even if the Democrats do make a comeback, they have spent half a century demonstrating that they are an, at best, an inadequate counter to America's awful political tendencies.
I actually like what they have done in the past, they’re level headed and reasonable. What I can’t stand and it makes my blood boil that they are completely ineffective without a political mandate. It’s a bunch of career politician cowards that may do well when everything is by the book but they remain completely emasculated when it comes to getting their agenda through. The Republicans even without a mandate will shuck and jive their way into getting their way.
If they lose it will be because they don’t track unfavorabilty ratings for your democrats as much as they do the current admin. It’s not enough (for moderates) to just say you hate the other guy.
> Like Italy, Germany, Japan, etc can be trusted but after, I'm not even sure what exactly, the US is fully and forever untrustworthy??
It took two generations and a new constitution for Germans to regain trust again.
You cannot trust the current generation of U.S. Americans, and the U.S. Constitution certainly does not alleviate that concern. They elect a god-king like president who seemingly has unlimited authority. Why would you trust such a country for more than four years?
Edit:
> but after, I'm not even sure what exactly
Killing people outside the USA left and right without due process? Starting a war and thinking that it is fun while the whole world is suffering because of that war? Kidnapping a head of state? Cosying up to the enemy of your allies during a war? Threatening allies? Declaring parts of an allied country as your own? Supporting Nazis in allied countries? Supporting separatism in a province of your neighbor (and until recently your closest ally)? Proudly telling the world what country the USA will assault next? ...
This story is that of Netflix' Chaos Monkey attacking the state most rhetorically aligned/proud of The Rule Of Law and showing in myriad ways how absolutely hollow that pride was and how vulnerable The Law is.
Are these bugs that get fixed or...if that was The Last Election, maybe not.
no one thought the consequences would include giving 1.8 billion dollars of American taxes to the people who tried to violently overthrow the government and to those who are successfully leading a bloodless coupe.
The best thing for the States to do at this point would be to hold a Constitutional Convention and dissolve the government of the United States as unfit for any purpose, after which their citizens can decide how they wish to proceed.