This Is How Democracies Die

[hollodero]

(01-25-2018, 05:31 PM)PhilHos Wrote: Honestly, I've seen it go both ways.

With Trump, you have supporters that will support him no matter what bad things he's done/will do but you also have detractors that will hate him no matter what good things he's done/will do.

I've seen it with Obama and with George W. Bush and I can only guess that it was happening with Clinton and probably Reagan as well (didn't really get into politics into 'Dub ya').

I think it's the fact that both sides can be so intractable and set in their ways and convinced the problem lies with the "other side" that is one of the greatest barriers to getting America to be the country it could be.

I'm not just talking diehard supporters though. Of course everyone has some of those. But the amount of Trump loyalty for lack of a better word from other people in power is what's so troubling. What gets tolerated and defended and spun and so on.

Also, while the point often holds merit I do think it doesn't always go both ways equally. Have you ever played the "What if Obama had done it" game. If Obama had dubious and/or ongoing business dealings he's not willing to disclose, a bunch of undeclared foreign agents in his transition team, had silenced a porn star with 100.000 Dollars he had an affair with, had talked about pussygrabbing, shittalked to boy scouts, would defame political opponents, the FBI and journalists on a daily basis, claimed voter fraud and supported a child molester, had a Times list accusing him of lieing a thousand times, a special councel investigation and so on and so on (this always ends up in lists too long, you know the stuff anyway), no way his support were still around the 40% mark. There would be some supporters. There wouldn't be quite that many. And there would be a whole bunch of Democrats being strongly opposed and voicing that, not just a single Flake. - It's just, Obama or Bush or whoever weren't Trump, so it's hard to compare.

Now while most of these things are rather embarrassing than troubling for democracy, the constant discrediting of law enforcement and the media and the repeated mentioning of baseless conspiracies against political opponents and the whole authoritarian attitude look more serious. As does the silence and deflection from his party.