The consequences of the tariffs are starting to show. The coming weeks will be interesting to witness how the public reacts to everything. Cargo ports are showing empty lots and ships are registered to not even begin the journey to the US.

If the sentiment for his presidency is low now, just imagine what will happen if the regular Trumpster begin to use their braincells to connect the dots between Trump's tariffs and the price of the product they hold in their hands... if they are even able to find a product to hold in their hand to begin with.

What you are describing is a lack of free speech, not an abundance of it. Authoritarian states, by definition, do not have free speech. This is the straw-man of "Yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theatre." argument. — Harry Hindu

You are not looking at how it is used. You are just looking at it's position when a state have become authoritarian. It's not the final state that has the problem with the tolerance paradox, it's the formation of such states:

The Germans’ ambivalent relationship to propaganda was also evident in politics: while the Weimar governments displayed uneasiness towards propaganda, the Nazi movement called for its unscrupulous use. In this way, the Nazis not only prepared for the destruction of democracy, but also stood for a different understanding of ‘Germanness’. — Benno Nietzel

- They used the absolute state of freedom of speech to slowly change the perception of the population into a position that later restricted freedom of speech. This is at the heart of the tolerance Paradox, that an absolute tolerance leads to intolerance. And with the backing of psychological research over the course of the post-war period up until today, we can clearly see how people's perception is easily changed and having no guardrails on freedom of speech it opens up the doors to this intolerance establishing itself and easily spreading.

People are easily fooled and come to believe in illogical ideas when there is no counter to those ideas being heard. — Harry Hindu

Not true, people can be shown facts and counter-arguments but will still oppose the rational if their conviction of the narrative they've been led to believe is strong enough. Just look at fanatical religion or any debate going on in the modern climate of debates online. Just look at anti-climate science beliefs; have you seen any of them change their mind because of logical, rational and sane scientific counter-arguments being showed to them?

You are being raised in a bubble, which is exactly what is happening now with thanks to the partisan media and people unwilling to listen to alternatives. — Harry Hindu

Alternative media is no better, it's even worse. While the state of the US media being awfully corrupted by billionaire influence, the alternative is not to abandon institutions which operate on journalistic ethics in favor of alternative sources of information, it's to champion neutral institutions who aren't owned by billionaire's influencing the content and information being broadcasted. And alternative media has even less visible "follow the money": https://www.npr.org/2024/09/05/nx-s1-5100829/russia-election-influencers-youtube

Putting trust in "alternative media" is a clear path to being radicalized in the exact way we're talking about here. To think that such voices have less of an agenda than legacy media is extremely naive to the point of being dangerous.

And the poll is misleading. Free speech is NOT saying what you want to say without consequences because we ALL have the right to free speech - which INCLUDES disagreeing with what someone says.

You have the right to say what you want, but so does everyone else. This is the misconception about what free speech is. It is not "say what you want without consequences". It is the "the ability to disagree with logical alternatives and to question authority, not submit to it without question (being incited)". — Harry Hindu

Or it's simply about the tolerance paradox. To foster a tolerant society that champions freedom of speech, there has to be limits to that freedom which does not tolerate speech that promotes intolerance.

Could it not be possible that those that are incited already have hate within them and are looking for any excuse to unleash it. — Harry Hindu

The history of psychological research and authoritarian states radicalizing its people says otherwise. People are easily fooled, easily duped into narratives that makes sense to them until being woken up by a deconstruction of those beliefs.

And to further question this, where do these beliefs that are supposed to already be within them... come from? Are children born with a hate that may only be unleashed when they get excuses to unleash it? I don't think this logic holds.

No, it doesn't. It just proves that you think racism is a catch-all for any kind of specialized discrimination. — AmadeusD

What are you talking about? I used an example to demonstrate the difference between hate speech rhetoric and valid criticism of Islam. On both the side of Islamic extremism and the side of right-wing extremism, they take advantage of this societal confusion to gather more supporters for their causes.

Not the people you are so badly trying to demonize for reasons unknown *yes, extremists exist. Yes, largely they lack nuance to say anything of worth. No, "right wing" does not = extremist. Good GOD. — AmadeusD

Who am I demonizing? Who are you so desperate to defend here? You just sound so confused and your extreme inability to understand the philosophical points I'm talking about makes you drive the whole topic off road.

Not a single straw to be seen. You said something absurd. I gave you a reductio. Your bed, mate. — AmadeusD

Your reductio, "yeah, Hitler loved dogs", as an answer to me mentioning the well-documented use of free speech absolutism by extreme groups, is the strawman since there's no "absurdum" it leads to. The risks of freedom of speech absolutism that Popper and others have been making arguments about is not an reductio argument just because you feel triggered by it.

And stop with the childish tone of language. No on thinks you're cool.

It is beyond comprehension why you thought this paragraph would be relevant. It is pure prevarication and an attempt to insult. — AmadeusD

No, it is relevant, just look at the tone and way you're arguing. It's not befitting of the standards of this forum. You don't argue in honesty or you don't care to grasp the points being made before charging in to attack. You're the one who's constantly acting like an asshole and then you try to play an innocent victim when people get fed up with that tone. It's childish.

That is one way to avoid engaging with anything, whatsoever. Feel free, i guess. — AmadeusD

What is your substantial counter-argument? All you do are these short-burst arrogant twitter-esque answers. Vague, angry, arrogant attempts to combat an argument with writing that in anyone else's eyes just looks like confused misunderstandings of what is being discussed. I can't make any substantial counter-arguments to your counter-arguments if there are non being made on your side. You're failing at basic philosophical discourse here while sitting on a high horse trying to bully your way forward. You think I haven't seen this type of rhetorical behavior before?

I know exactly what you're talking about. If you didn't understand what I said, that's fine.. — AmadeusD

Again, you're just saying that you understand, without actually demonstrating it, and then trying to turn that around into me not understanding you, with the rhetorical weapon of "just saying so".

Its easier to say that than make it patently obvious you'd rather whistle dixie. — AmadeusD

In what possible way have I an overly optimistic view... and of what? What are you on about? You make so little sense in your attempts to sound edgy that I think you're getting lost in your own train of thought.

And did you even care to engage with the further reading material attached to that? The stuff that I've been talking about all this time?

But that is patently untrue. So, it doesn't really matter. I got that this was your point, and that is what I responded to. It is absolutely nothing but a fear of a small sliver of hte 'other side's mental state. Which is what i said (in briefer terms). Nothing about "free speech absolutism" gives us what you want it to. — AmadeusD

It's not untrue, what are you talking about? Free speech absolutism is exactly the thing that Popper and other's are referring to in their paradox of tolerance. And I agree with them that there is a tolerance paradox that needs to be overcome in society in order to sustain tolerance.

What's your argument in opposition to their argument? Just saying that it's untrue does not make it so... You need to get off your imaginary high horse and make your case for why its untrue, act like you're on a philosophy forum rather than some twitter brawl to sound edgy. You're not cool, you're not winning anything through it and no one takes you seriously if you act like this. If anything, it rather seems like you're defending extremism, which I hope is just the misunderstanding that happens because you're unable to actually make your case and formulate a counter-argument against Popper's concept.

Your are correct in saying Free speech absolutism is an entirely legitimate view but foolish if you believe that absolutism isn't used by extremists to tolerate the intolerable and as Christoffer said "Shift the goal posts".

Free speech absolutists just want to spout hateful stuff and get no repercussions for it. . — Samlw

Exactly, I've never said that absolutism isn't "a thing", but that it's so corruptable as an ideal that it basically always lead to manipulatory rhetoric used by the most extreme.

It's the core problem at the heart of the tolerance paradox, which is the philosophical idea that talks about the very topic of free speech vs restrictive.

Islam is not a race my friend. — AmadeusD

You saying that just proves my point that many in society are unable to discern the difference between the two scenarios I described.

And I wonder why you use the same rhetoric there as I've heard so many times used by right wing extremists; with a clear dismissal of the fact that muslims is a group of people who are very much targeted not because the religion affiliation, but rather by their brown skin, even to the point that Siks are being branded muslims because they fit the "archetype" within the racist mindset or that christian people from the middle east are still treated as muslims. Muslims have just become the "name" of that group of people being racially targeted and as I mentioned, the difference in how you address the cultural problems within islamic nations is different between saying it comes from the people or saying that it comes from the systemic problems produced by islamic authoritarian figures.

A point that clearly went over your head.

Yes. Obviously. Hitler loved dogs. — AmadeusD

Stop strawmanning. And you're the one trying to lecture on standards of discussions on this forum. Just because you don't understand the subject I'm describing doesn't mean it's well-poisoning. And no, you're not understanding the thing I've describing, by the very nature of the the first thing you wrote above.

Quite a lot. You're caving into a fear of someone else's mental state. Ridiculous. — AmadeusD

So a short sentence is all it takes to describe an entire societal behavior from extremists groups that has plenty of research papers to fill whole volumes of books? Including all the methods and tactics used? And when I describe a common such tactic and rhetoric you counter with just telling me you know "quite a lot".

If you try to lecture others on the standards of this forum, then remember what "low quality" posting means. You've made no substantial counter-argument here, neither understood my point at all, or answer in a way that builds on a discussion that is able to be continued. Telling people "Islam is not a race" as an answer to a description on the difference between hate speech against muslims and criticism of islamic states just shows how little you know of what I'm talking about or that you engage in the discussion in such a sloppy and dishonest way that it falls under breaking actual forum rules of conduct. This is not the lounge and if you want to lecture on forum discussion standards, then people should expect more than "I know quite a lot" as your elaboration on a subject.

There is no paradox when it comes to speech. — AmadeusD

So you clearly don't know what I'm talking about?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

Educate yourself on the philosophy before you speak again. This is a philosophy forum, so act accordingly. Especially if you try to tell others the level of quality their writing should have on this forum. There's a lot of irony to how you act here.

This is perhaps the most ridiculous thing I've seen you say. Free Speech absolutism is an entirely legitimate view and this type of well-poisoning is below even the worse discussions on TPF. — AmadeusD

Is it well poisoning to mention how “free speech absolutism” is used by extremist groups as a rhetorical tactic? How it is actually a very common tactic by people to justify their hate speech? And often later using the rage-bait from the reaction of that rhetoric to gather people behind them as champions of free speech against those criticizing their hate speech. Radicalizing incrementally. How much do you know about extremist radicalization psychology?

How do you avoid the tolerance paradox when these groups use the “absolute” to change a society from a tolerate to an intolerant one?

If you can’t answer that, don’t lecture anyone on what is a “bad” discussion.

If it shouldn't be up to a court of law and a Jury of peers who should it be up to? — Samlw

The court of law, any laws does not come from nowhere. They are formed by people thinking about morality. It's moral philosophy that defines how we guard society from itself and informs what laws we have and how courts should decide.

What I mean is that if you ask the philosophical questions around free speech and where we restrict it in order to protect itself, society and democracy, then we need parameters that operate on moral logic, rather than on any court of law. The conclusions of this moral logic... is what should define how courts of law operate.

What we see in society is people uprooting the moral definitions on the subject of free speech, transforming them into methods to radicalize people into corrupted interpretations of it. Rather than universalizing the concept to something that has a solid foundation for actual laws.

Free speech is mostly protected in constitutions in many nations, but many constitutions have bad and unclear paragraphs on how to protect free speech itself from self-corruption through the intolerance paradox.

In the most primitive form of the law, it should be illegal to argue for restrictions of free speech when the reasons for it is not for the purpose of protecting everyone's right to free speech. When someone is acting out hate speech, they're also calling out for restrictions on free speech for the groups they act that hate speech against.

Basically, if I criticize Islam as a religion I could argue that many islamic states are fascistic in their control of information and limits of free speech and that there are individuals who call out for limits to free speech because of these arbitrary religious reasons and hate of certain topics and people. This is not hate speech, but a criticism of a systemic problem that limits human rights. If I instead were to criticize muslims as a human group and argue that we should not let them say any religious things, regardless of message, because islamic nations also talk about limits to free speech and that they shouldn't be allowed to spread anything they say because of this genetic fallacy I'm making, then I'm actually arguing through similar hate speech patterns for a restriction of free speech not out of criticism of systemic problems that are legitime reasons, but from racism.

-The problem is that society seem unable to discern the difference between the two scenarios, and it can cause problems for how free speech is being used in hateful rhetoric, moving goal posts by extremists, and even influence how courts interpret laws.

No, I believe it is the contents of the message that needs to be looked at, you can be black, while, gay, straight, it doesn't matter, if what you are saying is deemed in a court of law to be an incitement of violence, defamatory, abusive etc. then I believe there needs to be consequences. — Samlw

Yes, but I don't think you're taking what I said to the logical conclusion. Any form of incitement that negates the rights of someone else without a reason that is able to be universalized, falls under the need for consequences that restrict that person's freedom of speech.

If someone calls out for violence onto someone else without a reason that is able to be universalized, then that person should be shut up and feel the consequences. If someone says that we should kill a person because of the socioeconomic background they come from, that is intolerant. If someone says we should kill the person who called out for that killing, that is calling out for a defense of others and can be universalized. Disregarding the morality of killing in this example, one act is more morally justified than the other as one is calling out for killing in the name of intolerance and personal preferences of who gets human rights, and the other is a call to protect tolerance and other people.

A court of law does not operate on universal laws, it's why we have philosophy and moral philosophy in the first place; to research and study morality for the purpose of producing laws that improve society. We cannot use the courts of law as the source, but find the logic in moral behavior to be the fundamentals of how we conclude things like this and then form laws based on it.

Free speech absolutism is a common tactic to shift goalposts and slowly adjust people to follow something that they wouldn't outright do. It's a commonly used tactic within neonazi groups for example.

You draw the line at free speech, you are for free speech, but those people on the other side are against free speech, so we need to oppose them and be against them and... limit their use of speech.

The ones proclaiming to be free speech absolutists are actually the ones who want to limit free speech. They're acting from the perspective of allowing THEIR speech, not free speech.

And because of this, free speech runs into the tolerance paradox. That if we tolerate everything, then we will tolerate the intolerable, and thus invite in the thing that will limit tolerance and free speech.

It is obvious that in order for anyone to benefit free speech it needs limitations in order to guardrail it from being corrupted by the corrupt.

Basically, using a Kantian perspective, to universalize the concept. If what you say communicates the will to restrict other's rights to speech, then it's not universal and should be restricted. If you say that a certain group in society doesn't have the same rights as you, then you are essentially advocating for restrictions of their right, including free speech. Now, are you saying that certain groups in society shouldn't have the same rights as you based on who they are, or based on what they, specifically have done or said? Because if they are the ones who've started out saying other's rights should be restricted, then you are in the right to restrict them since that's able to be universalized. It is universal to restrict those who want to restrict others as that will remove the intolerance. But restricting people based solely on which group they belong to is not universal as that could just as easily be turned around against yourself.

Many are :pray: for exactly that. — Wayfarer

…and what happens if it fails? What will the lazy, apathetic public do then?

Haven’t we already been here? He’s even been judged guilty before. It’s close to being true what he said about shooting someone and getting away with it. Until I see the laws and regulations actually remove him for real, I will consider the laws of the US to be irrelevant, because they doesn’t seem to apply. Even if something were under investigation, there would have been a freezing of his power until investigators are done. Otherwise he could actually do whatever he wants until the slow bureaucracy finds him unfit for office.

In any other nation, even the notion of crimes or breaking the laws would put the president in temporary isolation from power. The US is both corrupt and utterly broken to its core in a way that makes me question if it’s even possible for it to fight back against this abuse of power.

It seems that it is rather built on the idea of trust that there won’t be someone like Trump at the top, but that there’s actually no regulations and laws preventing demagogues from taking power. So there’s no department or part of the government who’s actually able to prevent an authoritarian figure to take power.

Now that the system is being tested, are people sure it will work to protect democracy? Or have the US been naive in their trust in the system to the point of being blind to the risks?

But Mr. Prada has not been heard from or seen. He is not on a list of 238 people who were deported to El Salvador that day. He does not appear in the photos and videos released by the authorities of shackled men with shaved heads.' Nobody now knows where he is. To all intents and purposes, he's dissappeared, like people do in Russia and China and Iran. But not, until now, in the USA. — Wayfarer

If people cared about this, they would now drag Trump out of the White House into the Hague court. As always, we can’t really blame the bad people doing bad shit, that’s consistent. I will continue to blame the apathetic, pathetic, lazy and mind numbed public who just continues with their lives without a care in their bones.

It’s the banality of evil and the evil of the ordinary man’s ignorance that I absolutely despise. No one cares until they see the gun barrels pointed at themselves.

This is why I hate the public more than politicians, at least they are consistent. The people, however, are disgusting in their ignorance and apathy.

He’s right in that the populist right is a result of failures of the left. I think the left has been wrapped in a “good guy” mantra, always positioning itself as the one standing for human rights and the goodness of people against the capitalist machine of the neoliberal right. And in doing so have become blind to actual issues in society which the right could exploit to gain power.

And it is interesting that there’s been this flip, in which the right acts with post modern methods directly taken from the left. While the left is becoming a rather conservative group in that it speaks of a decency of a welfare state in a conservative rhetoric.

That the left may become the form of politics which tries to hold on to some form of stability in the same way conservatives on the right spoke of stability, but now that the right is sliding into chaos it’s the left doing so instead.

However, the current right is formed on populist ideas, meaning they have no central vision. They gained power without a plan to use that power, other than imbue more power to the oligarchs around the central power figure, and enrich themselves as much as possible on the backs of the people.

This form of power is essentially doomed from the start. And the left still has a vision of economics and ideals, which might boom in a few years because it’s a vision that power can naturally form around in the long term.

Essentially, a post modern populist leader who tricks voters and followers, will eventually fall, they always do. And when they do, people will want a new ideal to follow. And with industries dying or being automated, the traditional voters sharing the ideals of the right-wing populists will die off as they won’t benefit from the right-wing leaders politics.

I think that the 2020-30s will be marked as a large tectonic shift in politics and world economics. How the world looks when we go into the 30s will be the defined state of the world for the most part of this century.

Is Team Trump, or someone in his vicinity, setting up (prerequisites for) authoritarianism, or is there nothing to worry about here? — jorndoe

When should society worry? After it's been installed or before it is installed or before even the risk of it?

I would argue that there shouldn't even be a risk for it. That even moving in that direction should be treated as a disqualification of the duty of office.

There is no deep state. — frank

Yes, the deep state narrative is a conspiracy theory. Such disinformation should not be taken seriously in any discussion.

That's when 'the base' might begin to turn. I'm expecting June-July. — Wayfarer

Yeah, I mentioned earlier that the real pain will come after the next quarter. Then people will feel it and the companies earnings will show it. Basically, it's gonna get calmer for a while and then a big collective "what the f...!?" from everyone who didn't understand how tariffs work.

and a fight that Trump must loose. — Wayfarer

How?

I'm seeing daily stuff everywhere on how he oversteps all over the place, but nothing is happening. How many months of this before the riots begin?

Two weeks of tariffs is like a mouse fart in terms of geopolitics. No idea why people are getting overly emotional about it. — Tzeentch

Are you ignoring that all nations are reshaping their trades right at this moment? And the fact that the economical consequences will not be seen or felt until at least in the next quarter. How the market reacts is irrelevant since it's just operating on trying to predict the future. The real consequences takes some time.

So this is the test case. Trump is basically challenging the Supreme Court's order: 'you gonna make me?!?' — Wayfarer

Testing what? If Trump can follow normal practice of power under the constitution of the US, or if the guardrails of US democracy actually works?

If Trump doesn't comply, then marshals should drag his fat ass out of office to face the consequences.

There's so much BS going on that all the previous crimes and shenanigans of previous presidents seem rather innocent and unremarkable.

Why isn't the guardrails even stronger? There should be a non-tolerance against stuff like this. Immediate cancellation of presidential power. Any other nation with proper political structures would remove someone like Trump in an instance and declare immediate re-election.

I really don't understand what's so hard here. Is the US too corrupt, too stupid, or too incompetent? Or all at once? Maybe it's just too fundamentalist as a Christian nation, viewing the leader as a divine figure and untouchable. It's rather pathetic actually.

Imagine that you use that USB flash drive to access a Paper you have composed. Now think about the memory itself, do you really see the Paper (the supposed information) inside the USB stick? No. You see exactly what you said, variations in electrical charge. But you don't see the Paper. The Paper is created at the moment of contact and transcription with the interpretant. But before, it did not exist. — JuanZu

Neither does a real written paper, it's basically just carbon atoms in different constellations. So is the entire universe. What we perceive as relevant information to us is that which we can interpret as relevant. Language invented to communicate creates the information as a means of our navigation of the world, but our writing on a wall is nothing but entropic forces creating a deterministic movement of matter.

To the universe, the information on the USB stick and its presentation to us remains the same. There's no difference between our perception of the computers interpretation of it based on how we designed it to follow the structure of something perceivable by us... and the very existence of that information.

To the universe, the state at which a paper is perceived on the screen and how it rests on the USB memory is only differentiated by two states of being of the same thing. But even so, the universe would not perceive it has being the same thing as that is to a creation from us.

When thinking about these things it's easy to fall into humanocentrism, in which we value our own relation to something as humans as being equal or more important than what a thing actually is. Seen from the perspective of "something" that does not operate or exist as us humans, the nature of the information on the screen (interpretable by us) and the electrical state of the memory on the USB card, is fundamentally the same thing, or rather a state of something seen from different angles of reality. An object in which one side of it is the screen with the text, and the other side of it is its shape and form of the electrical state on the USB stick.

How we humans relate to things is very specific, very narrow and very biased to our own perception of reality, influenced by many things making a true observation of something flawed.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa, in Stockholm today, draws parallels to Rodrigo Duterte and warns about how the slide into authoritarianism can happen faster than people realize. And without a proper political opposition that is clearly rallying an opposition within the people, it can soon and quickly backslide the democracy.

https://swedenherald.com/article/feels-like-a-replay-comparing-trump-to-duterte

I also just saw a new video by "Then & Now" on YouTube which goes into detail the parallels between populists of the past and populists right now. And made the argument that we should talk about these times for what they are and not just call it "fascist". That the era we live in is truly populistic, in the same way we've seen populists in history rise and fall, but today, at a much greater scale.

The augmentation of populists through the use of social media has skyrocket their rise in society and formed a new global political behavior. The authoritarianism we see is fundamentally populistic rather than fascist. This form of populism will probably stay with us for long, as long as social media helps rallying these movements in the corners of democracies.

We will never be able to dismantle it because it's an inherent consequence of democratic societies. But in our social media age, it has risen to become a far more influential percentage of power within a democratic government.

And since the US operates on a bipartisan system, if populists gain power in one of the parties, they have a much greater chance to fully overtake the government, and to do it fast.

It all depends on how willing the people are to let this happen. If the Democrats are unable to muster an opposition fast, they can't be turned to for a solution. And so it's up to the people to govern and save democracy in the US from the risk of this backslide escalating.

In what way? I'm not sure, but million people marches and demonstrations outside the White House would certainly be the first step. To put a pressure on the powers on a scale rarely seen and not easily ignored. On top of that, making sure to help any investigative journalists getting access to evidence of Trump abusing his power, rigging the markets, connections to other authoritarian leaders of the world etc.

As we've seen in the protests so far, they can gain in strength. And the pressure cooker is on, people are starting to wake up to what Trump is doing and I think the wind blows in the right direction at the moment.

I just hope the momentum is there to course correct this blunder of giving Trump the keys to the kingdom before things get harder to do so.

The Constitution allows the president to become a temporary dictator during a war. — frank

Which is probably why Trump uses "emergency laws" for stuff that's not in emergency. He essentially invents some emergency out of thin air and then do whatever he wants.

If Trump does that (and doesn't end up with a bullet in his head), the problem is that Congress would likely go along with it. That's what's unusual about this situation. — frank

Not really, if Trump installs loyalists all around and threaten the careers of people, he can intimidate the congress to just follow what he wants. This is how fascist dictators comes into power from a democracy. Lazy and cowards who drop down kissing his ass because they risk losing their position of power or career. Republicans are full of these kinds of fuckers.

There would likely be riots that people like Joshs would attend, but riots don't do anything. — frank

Depends on the scale. If the US stands on the brink of actual dictatorship and fascism, I would hope millions of people take those fuckers down before its too late.

In other words, the fact that Vance is waiting to become president and we know he favors authoritarianism — frank

If so, then bullet to the head. Seriously, political violence is not a thing that should exist in democracies. But if democracy is dismantled and a nation is transformed into a proper dictatorship, then operation Valkyrie the way out of it. Preferably with success.

I mean, this is the core of my question. When will the people of the US do something? Like,at what point of a transition over to authoritarianism and a dictatorship is it appropriate to take action? And how do one know if it is going in that direction for certain?

We have the side of respecting democracy and protecting it even when someone we don't like has the power. And then we have nazi Germany. At what point in between do we know that "now is the time for another type of action to prevent nazi Germany"?

In my opinion, the time for action is already here. Trump has gone too far so many times that he should be dragged out of office and the nation initiates a re-election. It's better to do that now rather than risking it going so far that it's either too late or violence gets too real.

Exactly what is the negative aspect of doing a re-election demanding republicans to put forth a more proper candidate?

There are people who have been trying to ‘stop Trump’ since the first day of his calamitous rule. But as he’s won a democratic vote, there’s no obvious way to do it. Had he been convicted after either of his impeachments, it would have stopped him (damn you, McConnell!) Had the Supreme Court found that Article 19 or whatever it was disqualified him (which seemed obvious to everyone else) that might have stopped him. As it is, he’s been voted in, and the only apparent remedy is that he’s voted out, although whether he irredeemably damages the constitutional order in the meanwhile remains a possibility — Wayfarer

First, how can we know that Trump didn't work to oppose all of that behind the scenes? Second, it still shows the guardrails aren't working.

If he continues down the path of actual fascism, then it doesn't matter what the democratic process is as he has then dismantled it. Will people then still continue arguing that "he was elected" and "he wasn't voted out"?

My question is, at what point would people act outside of the normal procedurs to get rid of him? At what step, action or behavior from Trump and his followers, would the people say enough is enough and simply remove him by force.

Because we are witnessing something that could be at the very edge of a hostile takeover of power in the US. An installation of actual governmentally based true fascism. So I'm wondering, what would it take for people to act at the latest to stop something like that?

Or should it have been done already, by any notion of such behavior? Should a democracy tolerate things escalating to the very edge before taking actions to defend it? Or should it defend it sooner?

That returns to my questions... what should the public do about it. Or rather, how far will the US let Trump go before doing something?

If he's aiming to create a true dictatorship, changing institutions to the point he has absolute power, then why does the US population tolerate it? Why do people talk about this like it's ok because he was democratically elected? A democratically elected candidate who turns to demolish the democracy that created him, should be removed by force. Any notion that such action would be anti-democratic is simply delusional and ignorant of the problem with the tolerance paradox.

The US has the ability to stop this, but if he continues, and it gets worse, and people's rights are further being suppressed, they might not be able to. The whole point with comparisons to the third reich is to stop it before it happens. How many fantasies are there in fiction about stopping Hitler before he gained absolute power?

Even if Trump wouldn't go that far, the tendencies, the push to gather loyalists around him, to get rid of critics, to have power over institutions that should govern him, removing people in society and sending them away, are all showing a trend that shouldn't be tolerated in the US.

He's already crossed so many lines that agencies and the people should remove Trump and his loyalists. Brand them as a dangerous political fringe group and force republicans to get their shit together and exile any such people from their party.

Witnessing all of this from the outside, it's like that scene in the movie "Civil War" in which the journalists enter a small town where the owner of a store behaves ignorant of what is going on: "Oh, we don't really follow the news... there's so much negativity" is the gist of it.

When is it time to wake up for real? Less talk more action so to speak.

No one outside of Trump’s inner circle considers Miran’s ideas and plans to be coherent, credible, or realistic.

I know, but his inner circle are a bunch of conspiracy theorists and idiots like Kennedy. What normal people think about Miran's plan is not relevant to what Trump and his inner circle believes.

Trump himself isn’t following Miran’s roadmap. Instead of targeting specific trade imbalances or building pressure toward a coordinated currency adjustment, the administration’s tariff strategy in 2025 has been indiscriminate and poorly sequenced.

Because they are morons. Just look at the run through of how they came up with the tariff calculations. They essentially have a hand drawn blueprint to build a house and none of them has ever hold a hammer, that's how they're executing the plan.

Miran provides the blueprint of a modern Taj Mahal, Trump builds a treehouse with a blowtorch, and Republicans and their cheerleaders pretend it’s an architectural masterpiece. (Michael Barnard)

I actually wrote my answer before reading that segment so yes, exactly like that... except Miran didn't provide a blueprint of Taj Mahal, but a shopping mall with a roof that won't hold the coming winter snow.

This idea has been discussed. Most conclude
that Trump isn’t following the plan. — Joshs

So it doesn't matter if he isn't following the plan. People who've met Trump says that he acts all nice nice and shit in the room with them, but that he is totally clueless about most things overall. He has gathered loyalists around him and they all try to act out complex policies and orders on his behalf. They're the most incompetent cabal that's ever been.

Just because "there's a plan" doesn't mean anything is going well according to it, or that the plan was good to begin with, it just means that was the reasoning behind all of it.

If anything it hints as to when the dumpster fire might end as a failure to succeed with the end goal of the plan would be the reason to retreat from it. If the people doesn't demand Trump's blood, then the plan will surely be abandoned at some point.

In the end it doesn't change the fact that there are actual morons running the US. People usually say politicians are idiots, but that's mostly because they're failing something. This time... they are actual morons.

Has anyone considered that all of this is Stephen Miran's plan to devalue the dollar? His Mar-a-Lago accord spells out both increased tariffs and threatening to leave military collaborations, precisely what Trump has done.

https://www.nordea.com/en/news/mar-a-lago-accord-explained-a-new-era-for-the-dollar

Even if the tariffs won't increase more after the 90 days, I'm beginning to wonder what would happen if the EU goes in the other direction and lowers tariffs with other nations, even brining on free trade between the EU and nations outside the EU. Expanding free trade to Canada, Japan, Taiwan, India (get away from BRICS please), Australia, New Zeeland, maybe even Britain as well and many other nations who aren't among the BRICS.

Since the EU is behind on so many technological innovations and collaborations, this may be a golden opportunity to build bridges. Since the US was the largest competitor and they're beginning to alienate everyone, the EU could become a new superpower if playing the cards right.

And I rather have a superpower that's an alliance of diverse nations than a single nation as it's more robust against points of failure. It also incentivize nations to behave better to get closer to the EU as a true collaborator and ally, rather than having some toxic relationship with the US.

It would probably be the best course for the world really.

Did the thread spiral down into the lounge again?

If you go back to his videos from the 80s you'll find he was always a big believer in tariffs. I think he genuinely thinks they can be used to replace income taxes like in the 19th century, so we'll probably continue to see him trying to touch the stove like he did the last 2 times. — Mr Bee

Definitely, he's no better than any other believer who ignores actual research and knowledge. It's the main reason I am opposed all religions (though value the existential introspection they can help people with). Belief without anything else is never a path to anything but problems. And within politics, we separated the church and state for a reason, the US just didn't get the memo. Not only does it still operate on a religious belief similar to that of a king being appointed by God, the politicians operate on pure belief far more than on expertise, knowledge and wisdom.

We can probably count on one hand, no more, the number of people in US politics who performed their duties as representatives with wisdom, knowledge and listening to actual experts. It's rare in most nations, but more rare in the political halls of the US government. While authoritarian and broken states around the world either operate on authoritarian leaders urge for power, or they operate on being merely incompetent, the US is rather unique in that many politicians are actual idiots.

My jaw is on the floor most of the time when listening to politicians in the US. Seeing through the normal political jargon that any politician in the world keeps blabbering, there shines a void behind the words of a US politician and that's a deep lack of education, knowledge and wisdom.

You know, the memes of US tourists in other nations being absolute hollow heads to understand how to behave in another culture, that's how the rest of the world sees US politicians. Other nations has a few nutjobs, but the US government is so infested by them that it's a damn mystery the US has survived this long in the modern era of clown regimes.

But let's remember that now Trump has that trade war with China and still he has those tariffs with everybody at 10%. That 10% + China trade war will have an effect on the US economy. — ssu

As long as his followers suffer economically, but the economy doesn't crash, that's all good. The only way to get rid of him in a normal democracy is to hope fewer supports him, and with how bad people have it economically, and that his followers are mostly the people who are close to the bottom, it doesn't take much to make them suffer from their own vote.

Still, there was just a surge as stock market traders decided there were deals down in the valley that formed yesterday. — frank

The surge was because of the 90-day pause in tariffs.

I think he realized he fucked up, and that his advisor is even more stupid than he is. Maybe someone told him that the source of reasoning for why to install the tariffs comes from a crackpot who invented an expert for his book to look factual. That all of this is based on that non-existing person. And now that he knows this, he tries to back out in a way that doesn't paint him as a damn moron (more than usual).

:rofl: These fucking people.

The markets haven’t reacted as much as I was expecting, considering the size of the tariffs — Punshhh

They still believe he will back down. However, Trump isn't operating on logic or for the nation, he only cares about himself. He is like Putin in this regard; if something that would remove the tariffs were to paint himself as "the good guy" and give him praise, then he will remove them. But so far, removing them now is a failure on his part and therefor he won't back down.

The market doesn't operate on current events, they operate on possible future scenarios. And right now the future is in extreme fluctuation. This is why the market crashed but haven't crashed more.

If Trump had been a stable mind who clearly had a plan, then I think the market would have crashed more on the certainty that all of this will happen.

But he's operating based on "Art of the deal". He's trying to get a leverage for dealing with other nations. But he is too stupid to understand that China won't back down. They can let their population economically suffer much harder without risking their political power, something that Trump cannot. The US economy will collapse before China does anything and then China will be in the lead of deals with the US.

Everyone who has the slightest understanding of world economics and the dynamics of politics in China and the US can see this. Trump doesn't have the cards, to use his own rhetoric.

Trump has also dusted off the coal burning industry by using emergency laws...

If a president uses emergency laws while there's no active emergency, isn't that illegal and an abuse of his power? Shouldn't that warrant to remove him from office? Wasn't this essentially how the South Korean president was removed, using emergency laws to initiate marshal law.

There's no way to turn China into the US's main trading partner even counting value-added transactions. BTW, moving parts in and out of the US was mentioned in the article I posted about the UAW. Is that where you came across that issue? — frank

It doesn't have to be the main trading partner to have a significant impact on products and goods sold in the US.

Unless Apple takes less. — creativesoul

The amount of "less" is too much. Most of their profit goes into R&D departments and cutting those is not happening as the recent products haven't made a splash commercially and they're in dire need of a "next big thing". They will probably "take less", but even doing so it will cost above $3000.

The irony of it all is that the main argument for these tariffs are to get production back into the US, but the production of smartphones isn't some industrial railway industry where you just make a big steel factory. The complexity of modern technology can't just be "brought home". There's no competence in building the parts required for it and there are no specialized factories.

This could mean that many of the largest manufacturers of tech will move OUT of the US in order to keep the complex chain of production required.

16% of total imports into the US are from China. Total imports are about 16% of the GDP. — frank

Are you counting the entire production loop of how modern products are made? Is that just products themselves going into the nation to be sold to customers, or also the back and forth shipping of goods in the cycle of complex productions? Global trade is not just about a product being made and then shipped to be sold, it can be massive amounts of small parts going all around the world before becoming an actual product to be sold.

So what happens to ”US made” products that rely on a complex web of international trade, primarily China? Just for the sake of producing a product. The end price accumulates all rising costs along the entire chain of production, not just the end price.

On topic, Trump just slammed China with an additional 50% tariff. How many dropshippers will go bankrupt in the next month? What does it do to Amazon? — Benkei

I wouldn't be surprised if all of this escalate to the point protests form riots. When people start to actually feel the pain, companies go out of business, unemployment skyrocketing... I wouldn't be surprised if people demand Trump to be removed by force, or attempt to do it themselves. Trump survived one attempt on his life and another was stopped, but when people actually start to suffer, I'm wondering where things are headed in that regard.

The problem is that Trump is just trying to strong man other nations into giving the US something, but I don't think Trump understand that many nations will just meet his tariffs and the US economy will dive. After a while, there might be a blooming trade among other nations of the world, leaving the US out while Trump demands that manufacture magically appear within the nation meeting the same price points of products as when trade and manufacture was part of the globalized economy.

None of the people in the white house seems to understand how the economy works. Someone noted that Apple should just build their phones within the US. They don't understand that the price will increase to a point where an iPhone costs like $3500-$4500.

It's remarkable that people with this level of incompetence sit at the highest positions of power believing their own bullshit so much they don't even get the necessary cognitive dissonance from reality hitting them like a sledge hammer. So many advisors, so many economists, the entire market crashing... none matters to these conspiracy nutjobs.

I really do start to think that things will turn violent. Money is the one thing that if people start to lose, they will turn to violence. In the US, without all the social security of a healthy nation, if people face the reality of actual poverty, they will strike back if they feel mistreated.

Trumpsters and people who voted for Trump are "stupid", yet TPF categorically ignores what gave rise to Trump, and fails to provide a suitable alternative other than a return to the pre-Trump status quo - a status quo that American voters rejected.. — Tzeentch

Trumpsters can be stupid at the same time as Democrats failing to give a better alternative. What I see a failure of in most people discussing this subject is a failure to accept many angles to a problem as well as seemingly conflicting concepts.

And I've already said that the solution is for Democrats to go further left in their politics, because that would help people who won't get help from both Trump and the current liberal-centric Democrats. They just need to wrap it into an idiot-safe narrative so that the idiot voters can gather around slogans and marketing as they're not able to understand policies in themselves.

Lean further left, create a good narrative for marketing and campaigning, have a candidate who can speak to the working class without just trying to "play conservative".

While I embrace your sentiments, I think you give voters too much credit. — Relativist

Not really, I'm mostly speaking of the ideal voter who cares. I've already mentioned that I don't think democracy works anymore in a nation like the US. It's too entrenched in demagogian systems, enabling demagogues to be more able to gain power than actual representative candidates.

Either the US needs to install better guardrails that blocks demagogues from gaining power, or the US could evolve into the solution-based democracy I suggested. in which no campaigning or marketing for parties take place and instead leaders are calculated forward based on what the people need and wants.

a morally bankrupt criminal Republican is more acceptable than any Democrat. — Relativist

They had the Lincoln project. There's options for Republicans who want a 12-step program away from asslicking stupidity. They don't have to go Democrat, they can just... focus on a better candidate and not back down. But they're too comfortable being in the fringes of the Trump cult. But their children will remember and they will be despised by history.

That's also a good moral code to follow. How do you want to be remembered? Like an asshat who rolled out the carpet for the worst, or one who stood up against it and promoted the good? On the deathbed, will they think of all the suffering that was indirectly caused by being so bad at standing up something obviously bad?

People need to risk their jobs more for a better tomorrow. If enough people did it, we wouldn't have a problem and they would have their jobs anyway.

The folks who created the Constitution knew perfectly well "the people" could screw up, and provided for that with impeachment and if necessary the 2d amendment. And it is my understanding that the entire purpose of the electoral college was to negative the popular vote if the electors thought it necessary. And now there is the 25th amendment. — tim wood

Sure... and it doesn't function at all, so all of that is irrelevant and proves my point that this passive reaction to the disruption of what is supposed to protect the US democracy needs to be changed. The bad apples at the top won't change a winning concept for them, but the people should be enraged by how the constitution is treated, how the process of democracy is handled. Trump should be removed from office and it would be legally supported to do so. Some would say that this would be like Jan 6th but against Trump, but it's not as it's about how Trump disregards the basics of how the US democracy is supposed to work; or how people doesn't do their damn job in upholding those standards just granting him the keys to the kingdom.

The problem is bad people, both the stupid and ignorant who vote, and the bad people they vote for. But free elections and robust laws may well be the best way to control and correct for them short of revolution, murder, and civil war - although Jefferson famously thought that the shedding of a little revolutionary blood might on occasion be necessary. — tim wood

The robust laws have been changed tweaked or broken and no one cares. So what then? I don't think democracy works anymore, not in this track record. It's become too much of a demagogy, people too easily corrupted by the most minor push in a certain direction.

Basically, if the people are so broken down that their critical thinking isn't operating normally, then democracy is fundamentally dead. What then?

This is why I think democracy needs to evolve past what we think of as democracy today. There's a fundamental problem in having a representative democracy that operates as a popularity contest. That is NOT a democracy. If a true democracy can't be upheld, then it needs to evolve into something that removes the ability for grifters to exploit the public for their gain of power.

A couple of ideas I have are for the requirement to pass a one-time test to earn the right to vote. And it would have to be difficult enough to fail, at least at first, a lot of people. Perhaps requiring the equivalent of a very good high-school education to pass. Or four years' military service. Or four years' college plus two years' full-time employment. Or just a term of full-time employment, maybe six years. — tim wood

I don't think that would work as it would exclude minorities who didn't have the chance to get an education, service or job in the same way as more privileged people.

That kind of problem really only needs a pretty basic solution. People can only vote if they can list down what the policies are for different candidates. They can do this on their own at home, but need to have everything correct when turning in their votes. This would remove everyone who's so intellectually challenged that they don't have the ability to know what is good or not and it would remove those who are too lazy to think. It would also promote people to actually research answers and not just get stuck in their own echo chambers. Exposing them to ideas the candidates and parties have that they wouldn't otherwise.

Just look at how many Trump voters who just adore Bernie Sanders when he actually has time to explain his viewpoints. These people love him but are too indoctrinated to find out what he stands for on their own. Demanding voters to find information is at least a minor way to improve the quality of an election and remove the most obvious idiots from turning in their vote.

Another is the creation of a separate impeachment court that would come into being on 60% of state legislatures calling for it, the members of the court being three members from each states' legislature who would then meet, consider, and vote, a vote to impeach immediately ending the President's term. — tim wood

Yes. But there should be a nonpartisan part of the government that the president cannot rule over and that does not operate on popularity votes. Their entire purpose is to present an almost scientifically rigorous statistic on if a candidate is stable enough for being a democracy candidate. If they find anything that points to a candidate being unfit for office, they simply remove them from running. Their reasoning needs to be rationally argued, proved and reviewed, but the purpose being to review each party's candidate until there are candidates that are considered stable enough to handle presidency.

What the founders did not account for nor could anticipate was the speed of modernity. They were necessarily content to operate at the speed of horses, but the world works much faster, even at the speed of light. And lurking is the speed of a bullet. — tim wood

Which is why I think any constitution in any nation needs to be able to be changed and modified in a way that is only able to be done through vast majority. Many other nations has constitutions that are changeable, but it's hard to do so. However, it opens up the possibility to modernize.

But the US views their constitution as a religious text. They stand with one hand on the constitution and the other on the bible. It's religious zealotry to it rather than treating it like a political text. This is the problem with the US; they don't treat politics as politics, they treat it as religion; which in turn makes their president a deity. This form of thinking is overall a form of cult based in Christianity, giving themselves the rights to act in accordance to God. It's basically outdated norms of treating politics and that's why the nation is so fucked up really. Other democracies of the world seems to function pretty much in the way its intended, because they don't operate on religious terminology and ideology.

The separation of state and church in the US is a joke.

1,04

What's the prize?

On the other hand, it can also be telling of how many times I've been baited to respond. I've of late been better at just leaving conversations that go nowhere or not responding to people who are clearly not an important waste of my time.

I'm 1.05. — Hanover

Yey, the 1,0... somethingers-club :strong: