They should study political philosophy a bit more so they don’t say foolish things.
America is very clearly a legitimate democracy, even if who was voted in office and the actions of that democratically elected government don’t align with your expectations or world view.
I didn’t vote for the guy. But I did vote. And as a poll worker I can tell you first hand that we ran a free and fair election as we have for any year I can think of. Legitimate Democracy. Period.
That's a legitimately run _election_, which is necessary for but not the same as a legitimate democracy. For a democracy to be legitimate you need an impartial judiciary, an enforced constitution, fundamental civil liberties, and an accountable government.
Those are good points and the United States could do a better job, but those elements are all graded on a spectrum. I don’t think that having a few failures over some number of years means all of a sudden the entire thing is illegitimate.
Thank you for serving as a poll worker. (Seriously: thank you)
We have a legitimate democracy in terms of vote-counting, and you personally contribute to that.
It looks a lot less legitimate to me when I think about factors like votes having vastly varying weights because of gerrymandering and the Electoral College.
It gets even less legitimate when I think about how severely restricted our choice of candidates are, and how they are more or less chosen by party leaders and the oligarchy via billions of dollars of lobbying etc.
In this case, Trump won both the popular vote and the Electoral vote... that said, I believe in the idea of the Electoral College in that it's important to balance population and each State's rights. The one thing I would like to see are a larger congressional body as there are too few congressional representatives for the size of the electorate. We should probably have at least 3x the members of the House to at least be closer to the founding norms. Just my own take.
I'd also like to see a better runoff system than what we have in place, which could give a chance to more parties coming out. Right now, there are alignments into the two major parties and a lot of infighting because they are at least closer to what each group wants, but not really aligned and these create hard splits where there shouldn't be on a lot of issues.
Well, in the same vein I could tell you to re-take your primary school civics classes and write me an essay on the key components of a modern democracy.
The mechanism by which we choose leaders isn’t even in the top three most important prerequisites for a functioning democracy. If you didn’t pay attention in history and civics classes this may come as a surprise.
Democracy is about voting. What you’re referring to is “modern government,” which is full of undemocratic institutions and run by unelected bureaucrats according to values that don’t reflect the public’s.
As corporate lobbying succeeds with its lobotomization/capture of public institutions, it fundamentally raises the bar for what constitutes legitimate democracy - for example ranked choice voting rather than raced-to-the-bottom plurality. Or to the point you're responding to - as Congress continues to sit by and let this dictator run amok, how much can we say that this is really the democratic system working as laid out, rather than a mere husk of the old democratic structure going through the motions while something else is actually running the show?
This should be doubly apparent in this thread, where this specific invasion would likely still be happening even if the fascists had lost in 2024 - this has military industrial complex's manufacturing consent and nation building all over it, regardless of it benefiting Trump to distract from the childrape files and whatever other corruption/stealing he can wedge in.
> You do realize the current government won the elections and the president won the popular vote right
Technically he won a plurality of the popular vote, but he didn't win the popular vote. This is typically not a distinction that matters, but in this case it's what happened. The majority of people voted for someone else, but he got votes from more people than any other candidate did.
Of course, what really matters is the electoral college, but the popular vote is often seen as lending even more legitimacy to a victory.
The reason it doesn’t matter is that everyone who chooses to vote third party does so fully knowing who the two front runners are, as well as the likely margin of their state. Most third-party voters are in extremely uncompetitive states, making it quite safe to make a statement vote, even though it potentially dampens your “lesser of two evils” candidate’s apparent mandate.
For instance, I wrote an invalid write-in candidate since both major parties ran clowns in 2024, but Harris carried my state by a mile.
This is very true... I used to vote Libertarian for all races where there was a Libertarian candidate... then my state shifted purple, and I'd rather see a Republican more often than not over a given Democrat candidate. While I don't agree with the actual far right fringe, I cannot vote for a party with prominent communists in it.
I agree that most people who vote for other candidates come from uncompetitive states. But this doesn't necessarily prove your point. If there were more other-candidate supporters who would have voted for Kamala (if they had to vote for one of the two main candidates) than Trump, then that would mean he wouldn't have won the popular vote if it was just between the two of them.
Regardless, I think it's important to be precise about claims like this, since there is actually a difference between winning the popular vote and winning a plurality of it. Imagine making the claim if 10% of the popular vote went to third-party candidates, or even 20%!
Don’t worry, the next out-of-touch geezer you run will definitely have the charisma to win. It looks like they may be up against JD Vance for Christ’s sake.
At this point the bar is so low, who knows? A criminal rapist fraudster grifter won and continues to have enthusiastic support. Personally, I blame religion for strengthening those tribalism neural pathways and eroding critical thinking abilities.
Critical thinking comes later, not before. So religion doesn't erode them, but delays them.
Secondly, tribal behavior is strengthened through sports teams, college allegiances, rep vs dem party lines and many other things, with the latter of those being the main reason.
Thirdly, the dems were very pro zionist while Trump was able to maintain deniability. This swung a lot of dem voters.
Lastly, Kamala got something like 0 votes in the primary. Wishing she would win the general election was delusional. Dems should themselves in the foot twice vs Trump with Kamala and when they betrayed Bernie to help Hillary.
You should engage in some critical thinking yourself instead of blasting your insecurities over the internet. Your media diet (bet $1000 that reddit is a big part) needs a do-over.
> Critical thinking comes later, not before. So religion doesn't erode them, but delays them.
Critical thinking is a base human ability, which religion can indeed erode before it has a chance to grow.
> Secondly, tribal behavior is strengthened through sports teams, college allegiances, rep vs dem party lines and many other things, with the latter of those being the main reason.
This doesn't negate anything I've said, it adds to it. It is notable that the more religious parts of the US act more religious about their political party, however - something not seen in most western countries.
> Thirdly, the dems were very pro zionist while Trump was able to maintain deniability. This swung a lot of dem voters.
They were not as pro zionist as the "Lets demolish Gaza and build new resorts" GOP.
> Wishing she would win the general election was delusional.
Only because the US population is what it is, which is why wishing the only rational choice got elected is too much to hope for.
> blasting your insecurities over the internet.
I'm doing no such thing, however the way you make assumptions so haphazardly shows you yourself could benefit from some critical thinking instruction.
The left barely altered course in any perceptable manner, at least to disinterested parties outside of the US.
The US right, however, went all in on woke .. they literally couldn't shut up about "the left", "woke" and immigrants eating pets.
Outside of that Fox / Carson / Turner Network et al altered reality bubble it was hard to see evidence of significant increases in Drag Conversion therapy in school libraries and litter boxes in school classrooms.
Good effort though, it was years of sustained make believe and dead cat after dead cat thrown on the table of public discourse.
Tell yourself that if you want, but it's well-documented that the "Kamala's for they/them, Donald Trump is for you" ad was the top performer in the 2024 election cycle.
Kamala declined to walk back her support for, among other things, taxpayer funding of transgender surgeries for inmates. This was an extreme position that most Americans do not support. It is also at odds with the global trend, including in progressive European countries, with regard to the risks/benefits of transgender surgeries.
The Left loves to play the "Republicans pounce" game, and say that the Right is politicizing things. But this is a situation where the Right was reacting to a move the Left had made. This situation helped the Right win in the 2024 election cycle because they had the 80 percent side of multiple 80/20 issues (especially border security and transgender issues).
You can dislike the outcome (I sure do!), but this was a case of the pendulum swinging back, not the Right getting out over its skis.
ADDITION: It also didn't help that the prior administration had lied its face off about Biden being competent, which undermined trust in Dems in general and Kamala in particular. But when Republicans called this out, they were not exaggerating, they were just 6 months ahead of CNN/MSNBC finally admitting it after the debate.
> Tell yourself that if you want, but it's well-documented that the "Kamala's for they/them, Donald Trump is for you" ad was the top performer in the 2024 election cycle.
That's the problem, though. It shows how gullible and easy manipulated the US population was. Trans people are already such a tiny part of society, and an even tinier part of the prison population.
Offering healthcare for prisoners is something a developed, first world country should do, and trans healthcare is considered by experts to be necessary most of the time.
To throw away a vote on this single issue can only be due to ignorance, hate or both.
> That's the problem, though. It shows how gullible and easy manipulated the US population was. Trans people are already such a tiny part of society, and an even tinier part of the prison population.
But Kamala's position was not that it wouldn't cost very much. She backed the ideology, and the vast majority of Americans disagree with that ideology.
> To throw away a vote on this single issue can only be due to ignorance, hate or both.
Many Americans saw this issue as yet another one (like the Biden competence one) where Dems were telling them to ignore what appear to be plainly obvious facts, like "men cannot become women". Some voters decided that they could not support a candidate who appeared to live in a different reality, on the thinking that "if she's willing to lie to me about such basic facts, what won't she lie to me about?"
> But Kamala's position was not that it wouldn't cost very much. She backed the ideology, and the vast majority of Americans disagree with that ideology.
I don't think that's really accurate. Most Americans are deeply misinformed on the issue, and a fair percentage of them think it's something like men making excuses to go in women's prisons.
A lot of those voters got their info specifically from misinformation sources like Fox News or those ads.
> Many Americans saw this issue as yet another one (like the Biden competence one) where Dems were telling them to ignore what appear to be plainly obvious facts, like "men cannot become women". Some voters decided that they could not support a candidate who appeared to live in a different reality, on the thinking that "if she's willing to lie to me about such basic facts, what won't she lie to me about?"
This is why I've said elsewhere democracy doesn't work when you have such an uneducated population. Those voters are not informed on issues of transgender health of gender dysphoria, and so were taken advantage of and misled by a party that created/stoked fears and spread misinformation to win an election.
> This is why I've said elsewhere democracy doesn't work when you have such an uneducated population
You're literally the person who downthread advocates for redefining "majority" to be a synonym with "plurality" because people who don't know the actual definition of "majority" use it that way.
> Those voters are not informed on issues of transgender health of gender dysphoria, and so were taken advantage of and misled by a party that created/stoked fears and spread misinformation to win an election.
> You're literally the person who downthread advocates for redefining "majority" to be a synonym with "plurality" because people who don't know the actual definition of "majority" use it that way.
No. Far from it. This seems to be a case of willful ignorance, as I said in a previous reply reputable dictionaries[0] define majority to mean 'most', i.e. a definition exists for the word majority which exactly matches the way people use it.
It would seem it is you who is unaware of at least one of the definitions of the word majority.
To the extent is is autobiographical, your comment about uneducated people who were misled by a party spreading misinformation is indeed objective. Good luck escaping your chosen bubble!
No, it isn't autobiographical. It's pretty widely documented that the vast majority are ignorant about transgender issues and help. The GOP ads focusing on trans issues were objectively misinformation, just like 45s claim about migrants eating cats and dogs.
Out of the two of us, I'm not the one in a bubble.
"I'm not in a bubble" is literally what people in a bubble say, FWIW.
You seem to think it's more likely that 80% of the country has been misled by propaganda related to basic human biology than that the other 20% is wrong. There have been plenty of times when 80% of people were wrong about something, but when the topic is one that all humans have firsthand experience with, it's somewhat less likely that they've been magically misled.
You're off-base comparing this to migrants eating cats and dogs. That was never an 80/20 issue.
> The left barely altered course in any perceptable manner, at least to disinterested parties outside of the US.
Obama carried out mass deportations, claimed that undocumented migrants broke laws and must be held accountable, ordered extrajudicial execution of US citizen and was protected by executive privilege, invaded Pakistan to kidnap and execute Osama bin Laden, deposed Gaddafi and destroyed Libya, campaigned on a platform opposing gay marriage, wanted better relations with Russia and was secretly transmitting promises to Putin, vastly expanded the state surveillance apparatus, had citigroup appoint his cabinet, gave bankers bankers / wall st a pass for their role in the mortgage crisis. And he was (and very much still is), he was a darling of the left.
When pressed, many will try to claim they never really liked him, disavowed those particular things about him, that he was actually a right-wing president, etc., which in a weasely way might be technically true, but the difference in decibels surrounding very similar actions betrays reality.
The American mainstream left has changed quite a bit in the last decade. Not sure why I see so many denying this. Unless you're trying to say they never cared about any of that and still don't they're simply cheerleading for their team, which is more cynical but more understandable I guess.
> The American mainstream left has changed quite a bit in the last decade.
The only thing the American "mainstream left" did in the last decade is grow from a completely insignificant size, on a national scale, to a slightly less insignificant size, through a subset of the political disaffected becoming engaged (a big catalyst for that being Bernie Sanders 2016 primary campaign; DSA membership shot up, IIRC, more than 10-fold directly after that.)
The set of viewpoints in that group didn't really change all that much, nor did the set of viewpoints in the actually mainstream groups left of the GOP (which themselves are not actually left, but center-right pro-capitalist.)
Its the closest thing to both mainstream and left that currently exists.
And its also the source of the change in the overall Democratic coalition; the Democratic center-right that has been (and remains) the dominant faction of the party hasn't moved an inch, but the party as a whole has moved because the segment further left has grown substantially, mainly by mobilizing the previously disaffected.
> No it's not, that's just something the left uses to deflect rather than take ownership of their own problems.
No, it is the fucking left.
> The democrat party essentially is the mainstream American left
The US has no political party named “the democrat party”, and the Democratic Party is (as historically each of the two major US parties has normally been) a broad coalition party, the dominant faction of which currently is center-right neoliberal capitalist, not anything even approximating left. The center-left to left component of the party is substantially weaker (though it has grown stronger since 2016, with an influx of the previously disaffected, as I described.)
On a very zoomed out aggregate level, sure, the Democratic Party has changed—and if that’s what you want to talk about, just say that—but the source of that change is the part that isn’t center-right neoliberal capitalist drawing in new blood from outside the party, not a change in the positions of the left (or, for that matter, a change in the position of the dominant faction of the part,y, either.)
If you use “left” to refer to a faction that (1) is largely seen as an opposing force by those who identify as “left”, and (2) largely sees the “left” as the label of an opposing force, and (3) where even you admit there is a much clearer term for what you are actually referring to... Well, maybe you should reconsider your terminology.
No, you're just going berserk for no good reason. Everybody understood the words and the context, even you did despite feigning ignorance. These are commonly used terms, and were put in an entirely proper and understandable context. Having a little tanty on the internet won't change any of that that. Deal with it.
> Technically he won a plurality of the popular vote, but he didn't win the popular vote. This is typically not a distinction that matters, but in this case it's what happened.
Colloquially majority means 'greatest share', and he certainly had the greatest share of votes out of all candidates. I don't like it, but it's correct to say he won the popular vote.
I agree that some people use the phrase loosely. I would ask such people what they would say to distinguish between someone who actually won the majority of the popular vote versus someone who did not. It's not a "super-majority" situation, IMO. But surely it's worthwhile to have a different way of referring to the two cases, especially now that the less-common one has happened in recent history.
> I would ask such people what they would say to distinguish between someone who actually won the majority of the popular vote versus someone who did not.
This is like asking someone to distinguish between a hypothesis of who killed JFK when they say they have a theory of who did. You're mixing the colloquial usage for no reason.
Majority doesn't mean more than 50% of the vote in everyday language, it means 'the most'. Trump got the most votes of any one candidate.
> Majority doesn't mean more than 50% of the vote in everyday language
I guess it depends on whom you hang out with and talk to. I completely agree that some people can't understand the difference and speak accordingly. But I don't think we should redefine words based on the lowest common denominator of understanding/usage.
And in this case, it's especially important not to redefine "majority" because if we do then there's no word left to refer to an actual majority. That's not the same thing as JFK conspiracy theories.
> But I don't think we should redefine words based on the lowest common denominator of understanding/usage.
No one is redefining anything. Merriam-Webster and Oxford both have a definition for majority meaning most, and that's the more common definition that is used in everyday speech.
Context matters.
> And in this case, it's especially important not to redefine "majority" because if we do then there's no word left to refer to an actual majority.
In this context, talking about the popular vote, no information is lost, nothing is miscommunicated by using the word majority and understanding how people are using it. Which, by the way, they are using correctly as per dictionary definitions.
> That's not the same thing as JFK conspiracy theories.
No, but it's the same as per my example in that you are being pedantic about a word in a way that serves no purpose, except maybe to try and make people feel stupid.
> Merriam-Webster and Oxford both have a definition for majority meaning most, and that's the more common definition that is used in everyday speech.
I don't have a subscription to Oxford's dictionary, but MW's lead definition mentions being more than half [1]. The fact that there is some other definition that doesn't specifically mention this is not probative of your claim that this is the more important definition. And your unsubstantiated claim that this is the more common usage is belied by the fact that your preferred definition is not the lead definition.
The definition you're attached to/fixating on, is marked as definition 'a'. Definition 'c' is defined as: the greater quantity or share - it's two lines below, you must have seen it.
That's the definition most people are using, and they are using it correctly. It's some shameful attempt at elitism to insist on correcting people, especially when they are not wrong - really it's just a completely inability to understand that different contexts use different definitions.
> And your unsubstantiated claim that this is the more common usage is belied by the fact that your preferred definition is not the lead definition.
I'm not sure the ordering of definitions indicates what you think it does, in any case it's trivial to find examples of the word majority being used to mean definition c. Ask your favorite AI, I bet they'll tell you you're wrong - and you know what? There's nothing wrong with that.
> a number or percentage equaling more than half of a total
a majority of voters
a two-thirds majority
I never said I couldn't find it, and I linked to it above. It's not a "shameful attempt at elitism" to point out that the first-listed definition is what I said. Your rejoinder that there exists some definition that could encompass your preferred usage does not refute what I said. Since you seem to be impervious to such logic, I'll leave it here. Have a good one!
> It's not a "shameful attempt at elitism" to point out that the first-listed definition is what I said.
That wasn't the behavior backing the claim, and you know it. The behaviour backing the claim was ignoring the definition being used as an excuse to try and correct people when you know well what they were saying. It's a sign of insecurity, generally.
> Your rejoinder that there exists some definition that could encompass your preferred usage does not refute what I said.
The fact that the word as a definition that shows that people were using it correctly is what refutes your claim.
> Since you seem to be impervious to such logic
I have no problem with logic, but I am critical of various peoples "logic".
> I'll leave it here.
I'm skeptical, but if you follow through I'll be appreciative.
All while Europe dabbles in outlawing and criminalizing opposition parties they’re deeming “far right”. Sure anyone who opposes unlimited unrestricted immigration is now “far right”. Regardless of opinion, democracy is about the people determining that conversation, not politburos.
Alternatively the UK violating the millennia old Magna Carta by halting jury trials for criminal offenses with less than 2 years of jail time.
It's actually a bit more complicated than that. And unlike the US during the 20th century, Europe has actually had to contend with the far right abolishing democracy and committing genocide on its own population before. It is understandable that Europe doesn't want to repeat that mistake.
As for your assertion that anyone who opposes unlimited unrestricted immigration is somehow far right: you are simply wrong.
If you want to find out how wrong you are I would encourage you to try moving to Norway. Then tell me if the process feels "unrestricted".
I would suggest knowing things before you express strong opinions.
The comment I was replying to is also whataboutism from Europe. It was Nazi's who didn't like free speech. Shutting down any sort of debate by yelling "far-right" at everything isn't a functioning democracy either. My grandfather tried to fight in WWII against the actual Nazis, but his politics would be labelled "far-right" now. That's just absurd.
If you're still treating Reddit, especially large subreddits, as a serious source of information rather than an extremely manipulated outlet of 90% propaganda bots, that is quite foolish.
Maybe I should make a website where example.com/e/Europe shows whatever I want people to think Europe thinks, and people will treat it as an authority for some reason? That's basically what you're doing with Reddit.
Yes, clearly the russian bots are running a campaign against Trump, the most explicitly pro-Russia president we've had in decades. Donald "Ukraine started the war" Trump.
The goal isn't to help one coherent team win, but rather to foment division that undermines cohesive action. This is also an attractor for anybody interested in neutralizing democratic governments, be it Russia or simply corporations that don't want to be regulated as they gradually form more and more of their own government.
It doesn't seem far fetched to me for Russia to further drive a wedge between the US and Europe.
I don't partake in that subreddit so I have no clue as to the content or if this claim is true or false but it doesn't seem like a crazy idea for Russia to do. Sure there's plenty of content Trump gives Russia to potentially amplify, but there could still be bots amplifying things and making some opinions or takes on a story be more popular than reality.
If you sit people down and talk to them, I think you will find that most people around the world are actually able to distinguish between peoples and their governments. However when you look at what people say online, or when you ask groups of people, they do not always make the distinction.
The people who can not present a problem. Regardless of what pairing of nationalities.
While there may be some truth to that (bots)... there are definitely a lot of quasi communists that are participating in these groups. They are active, involved and have an outsized influence in terms of being a squeaky wheel.
You just have to look at the protests in NYC over Venezuela to see it... they aren't actually for what the people of Venezuela seem to want (they're celebrating), the protestors are clearly pushing for and protecting at what represents communist values, even if Maduro isn't really much of a Communist.
You could start with none of them voting for their presidential candidate to be nominated.
The Democratic Party is at odds with Democrats, in my opinion. They just don't want to let anyone but the party itself pick the candidate, then are surprised when their own voters don't feel the candidate is theirs.
Obama was nominated in spite of the party, and people showed up for him.
Trump is awful, but losing to him twice is unfathomably stupid.
Yeah, polls are limited in a variety of ways. The election results at least represent when someone took some amount of effort to vote.
2024 eligible voters: 244,666,890
2024 ballots cast: 156,766,239. 64% of eligible voters cast a vote
Trump votes: 77,284,118. 49.2% of votes cast, 31.6% of eligible voters
Harris votes: 74,999,166. 47.8% of votes cast, 30.6% of eligible voters
Trump got 1% more of the eligible voting population to go through the effort of casting a vote. That's not nothing, and it put him in office, but it's not a landslide that grants him an unquestionable public mandate.
I didn't say it was a landslide. The electorate is closely divided. But saying "most people didn't vote for Trump" makes it seem like they wouldn't have voted for him if they had to choose. And the data we have points in exactly the opposite direction. The pool of non-voters is low trust and cynical about American institutions. In that regard, they are more Trumpy than the electorate as a whole. In the Blue Rose study, Harris would have won if only 2022 midterm voters had voted in 2024. And if everyone had voted, Trump would have won by almost 5 points.
Making assumptions that non-voters would or would not support particular policies is erroneous. Harvard-Harris did a poll question on this last month, and found that 76% of Americans supported the U.S. arresting Maduro and bringing him to stand trial in the U.S.: https://harvardharrispoll.com/press-release-december-2025. That means most Americans are further to the right on this issue than a bunch of isolationist conservatives who voted for Trump.
Well, then I'd first have to ask how you define "communist" or "quasi-communist" to understand what you mean. The term "communist" means different things depending on the context of the person who uses that term.
There's Option 3: Trump built a campaign on lies, a significant minority of the American public were gullible enough to believe him, and many of those people regret it.
Option 3 is consistent with national polls. This fact is not flattering to the American public, but it's also not damning. Unfortunately, our electoral system has a slow cycle rate so we're stuck with the consequences for a while.
Assuming you are European, I can only offer these small words of consolation: I feel confident that a significant factor Trump's plummeting approval ratings is his anti-Europe and pro-Russian rhetoric. Everyone was pretty aghast when Trump declared the new public enemies (Canada and Greenland) on his first day in office.
Americans generally have very positive feelings towards Europe. We all just need to make it through the next three years.
Oh, so we’re just making up our reality now? Biden and Trump each won the popular vote and to suggest otherwise would require a belief in a colossal conspiracy theory.
Hi, here in America we also know this is true. :) Just riding it out til the regime of crazy falls over. When it happens, there will be much rejoicing.
This one is probably also -- if not completely invented by -- at least seriously boosted by russotrolls. And weaponized for several pro-Russia talking points, such as campaigning against Kamala Harris ("she is not against Israel so don't vote for her") and driving global gaze out of Ukraine.
I asked why, not how. In any democracy that question is easy to answer. You can look at the candidates platform or poll the voters to find out why someone won. You can't answer the question I asked, because nobody knows why she got the job. The vote in the Europarl had a single candidate choice (her) and nobody else. Literally a rubber stamp.
Because the party groups negotiated with the heads of states comprising the European Council to find a suitable candidate?
You know, like how all parliamentary systems works? No parliamentary system directly has the populace vote for their prime minister.
After the election someone has the task of proposing an executive government to the parliament. In many countries that is the speaker of the house. In the EU it is the heads of states.
The European Parliament has also rejected commissioners from being appointed. How is that literally being a rubber stamp?
Yes, the EU is a bit more complex. What most people miss is that the EU functionally has both an upper and lower house, with the upper house being selected from the national elections and lower house from EU wide elections.
I personally would prefer a more transparent system with more involvmement of the people in the EU democracy. But the EU functionally is democratic where the votes in both EU and national elections leads to the current executive branch.
"Because the party groups negotiated with the heads of states comprising the European Council to find a suitable candidate?"
What negotiations? We have no proof any negotiations took place. We don't even know if there was a vote, or if there were discussions, what was discussed, or who the candidates were. The entire process is secret. Think about how mad that is.
"You know, like how all parliamentary systems works?"
No parliamentary system works this way.
"After the election someone has the task of proposing an executive government to the parliament."
There was no election.
"The European Parliament has also rejected commissioners from being appointed. How is that literally being a rubber stamp?"
The head of the Commission before vdL said that both national and Europarl vetos on commissioners are meaningless. They just suggest a replacement who is ideologically identical.
"What most people miss is that the EU functionally has both an upper and lower house, with the upper house being selected from the national elections and lower house from EU wide elections."
You just said it has a single chamber! It really has none because the Europarl can't pass its own laws so it's not a house of representatives, just a room full of theatre kids playacting democracy. The EU doesn't have an upper and lower house by any definition used anywhere in the world. Stop pretending to not understand things.
Do you have proof the negotiations take place before the speaker of a house/king/whatever process proposes a canditate to form the executive branch in a parliamentary system?
> There was no election.
Just stop with the misinformation.
The current Commission is the von der Leyen Commission II, which took office in December 2024, following the European Parliament elections in June of the same year.
> The EU doesn't have an upper and lower house by any definition used anywhere in the world.
Yes, every country is unique. And the EU moreso due to its history.
> It really has none because the Europarl can't pass its own laws so it's not a house of representatives, just a room full of theatre kids playacting democracy.
It is just the chamber that accepts the proposed commmission, and has the decision to unilaterally force a no-confidence vote if the commission does not propose the laws the chamber wants.
Yes we do have proof of such negotiations. Political parties often use elections internally to select their leaders, those campaigns are public, and then they may spend months negotiating between themselves based on their publicly stated stances in order to form a government, or in more direct non PR systems, just take power directly if they win a majority. The resulting coalitions or governments are explainable. The EU Commission isn't and it's deliberately so.
>The current Commission is the von der Leyen Commission II, which took office in December 2024, following the European Parliament elections in June of the same year.
And those Europarl elections had no influence on who became leader of the Commission, did they, so why are you bringing them up - this seems like the kind of obfuscation the EU regularly relies on. Make noises that sound like what happens in real democracies and hope nobody notices that key links in the chain have been severed.
> Yes, every country is unique. And the EU moreso due to its history.
The EU is not a country. Its "history" is short and artificial. It could work however the people who constructed it wanted it to work, and they chose a dictatorship. What does that tell you about their intentions?
> It is just the chamber that accepts the proposed commmission, and has the decision to unilaterally force a no-confidence vote if the commission does not propose the laws the chamber wants.
No democracy has a chamber that works like this because that is useless and undemocratic. The Europarl's power to fire the Commission is theoretical. It requires a 2/3rds majority so it was never successfully used in its entire history - the Santer Commission resigned, it wasn't fired. No MEPs have ever suggested firing a Commission in order to get specific policies passed, so MEPs have no influence over policy at all. They can theoretically veto things and then watch the Commission reintroduce it again in a different form, so nobody who cares about policy ever goes into EU-level politics.
The only reason that does not happen in the EU is that we do not have EU wide parties. Therefore the palatable candidate needs to come from somewhere else.
Take Sweden, the only requirement for the prime minister is to be a Swedish citizen without holding any position that would lead to a conflict of interest, followed by the parliament accepting the nomination.
It is only by convention and incentives that one of the party leaders of the government coalition becomes prime minister. Sweden has the past 3 years had the third largest party's leader as the prime minister since that was the one the government coalition found palatable.
> And those Europarl elections had no influence on who became leader of the Commission
Please. Just stop. How can they have no influence on who became the leader of the Commission if they are the one to accept the nomination?
Vote no and it is back to the drawing board for the European Council. Which it was close this time as only 51% of the MEPs voted to accept the proposed commission.
This is just getting ridiculous.
> The EU is not a country. Its "history" is short and artificial. It could work however the people who constructed it wanted it to work, and they chose a dictatorship. What does that tell you about their intentions?
True. It is a tightly integrated union which still haven't merged completely. Somewhere in the grey area.
How can they choose dictatorship if everything is democratic stemming from national and EU wide elections?
> No democracy has a chamber that works like this because that is useless and undemocratic. The Europarl's power to fire the Commission is theoretical. It requires a 2/3rds majority so it was never successfully used in its entire history - the Santer Commission resigned, it wasn't fired. No MEPs have ever suggested firing a Commission in order to get specific policies passed, so MEPs have no influence over policy at all.
This is just getting stupid. Please. The power was not exercised but a commission was forced to resign after become ineffective due to not being aligned with the european parliament.
The money quote from wiki:
> The crisis had compounded the already reduced powers of the Commission in favour of the Parliament's legislative power, the council's foreign policy role and the ECB's financial role. However the change with Parliament was the most profound, the previous permanent cooperation between the two bodies came to an end with the shift in power
I truly want to understand why you hate the EU so much? It seems like you are cherrypicking facts to embellish your view rather than seeing things for what they are.
An evolving democratic system with competing national and union interests.
So what are the parties in the europarl then? They're not EU wide parties but also not national parties. Waving national flags in the EU Parliament is against the rules, lol.
They're not genuine political parties at all, because you can't build such things in the EU. Parties with no ability to take power aren't parties.
> How can they have no influence on who became the leader of the Commission if they are the one to accept the nomination?
Because it's a pointless power as adequately explained already by Juncker, that's why the EU is designed that way. Europarl is given exactly one candidate and zero input on who it is. What happens if they reject? Assuming procedure is even followed (not certain in the EU institutions), they'll be given another candidate who is a carbon copy of the first. Same views, same background, same ideology.
And they know this stupid game because the EU operates this way regularly. See the number of times they lost referendums on constitutional change and then made people vote on the same thing again, or the way stuff like Chat Control never dies. That's why the only people who sign up to be MEPs are either just rubberstamp cheerleaders for the Commission who often don't bother turning up, or people who think the Europarl is fake and their countries should leave the EU entirely.
What kind of a chamber is it that can't even stop itself being spammed with the same legislation it keeps rejecting in different forms, can't repeal unpopular legislation, is full of members who openly say it's damaging/fake and gets openly disrespected on live TV by the real power center? A fake one.
> due to not being aligned with the european parliament
You mean: due to being corrupt.
> I truly want to understand why you hate the EU so much?
Why did Russians hate the USSR? There's nothing to like about it. It's an evil system designed to enforce left wing dictatorship on Europe using lies, secrecy and, when necessary, aggression. It sees any attempt to remain independent as a problem to be crushed by abusing its powers. It makes Europeans more divided and less cooperative. I've lived in two central/west European countries in my life. The EU has treated both of them like dogshit. That's enough reasons.
Elections is only one characteristic of a democracy. Other characteristics include freedom of the press, freedom of speech, minority rights, rule of law, accountability and transparency, and separation of powers.
Nothing about democracy implies minority rights, the rule of law, or the separation of powers. Indeed these things are in greater or lesser degrees anti democratic.
None of those things are characteristics of “democracy.” Many of those are exactly the opposite: they are anti-democratic checks on democratic government. They empower a privileged class of lawyers and judges to overrule majorities based on supposed “rights.”
You'd make an excellent politician, as you have a great way of using words in an emotive manner to win a point.
"privileged class" immediately plays on people's emotions, along the lines of "the people have spoken", meaning if you didn't vote the same way, you're not "the people". I lived through all this in the brexit vote, and your language is all very similar sounding.
Over the years, democracies around the world have evolved these kind of checks and balances. They are part of the system, not imposed on it by some "privileged class" for their own nefarious reasons.
Historically in the American Republic, this has been true more often than not. There's a reason something taking "an act of Congress" is not a new expression for difficulty.
"Act of Congress" has always implied "something that is hard", but it has also implied "something that is fairly definitive". Today, congress can be largely ignored by the executive and congress seems to support it vocally. Is this also something that has been true more often than not in the American Republic?
And I wouldn't exactly say that Congress is wholly supporting unrestricted presidential power currently either. E.g. Senator Thune continually shooting down Trump's more oddball pleas.
There are very vocal supporters of the president in both the House and Senate GOP caucuses, but they're not the majority.
I think the strongest version of your argument would be something like 'In recent US Congressional history, both parties when in power have used congressional power to tactically check opposition party presidents, but neither have sought to permanently expand and defend the bounds of congressional power.'
Wouldn’t a functioning congress have resisted the executive aborbing its powers? After all, congress was supposed to be the most powerful branch. For good reason.
> congress was supposed to be the most powerful branch
Just re-read the USA constitution. Despite much effort, I did not find any "power rankings" of the three branches. Please point me in the right direction.
It was written before Dragonball Z existed so they didn't have the convenient framework of "power level" to use. Instead the power of Congress is indicated by the fact that all acts of the government are derived from bills originating in Congress, which the president rubber stamps (or not, which congress can then override), and the supreme court judicially interprets - but only if someone brings suit.
Now the president can do police actions and stuff but it seems like the intention was congress being the branch that had independent autonomy to just do things and get the ball rolling.
Congress sets the president's salary and has the power to fire him. The president has no such reverse power. The legislative branch is clearly the more powerful. "co-equal" is a fiction made up out of whole cloth by Nixon to further his criminal activities.
Until the party system existed, this was true. As soon as the party system evolved (pretty much immediately), with the President nominally the head of the party and the President has at least 1/3 of the Senate, the President comes near to immune from dismissal.
At that point, combined with the recent Supreme Court decisions holding 'official acts' as non-prosecutable, has swung the power meter severely to the executive.
Really? You read the constitution and managed to not absorb how the system is structured?
Hint: Look at who has which powers. Congress has the power to check every other branch. Neither the President nor the courts have symmetrical power over Congress. This asymmetry reflects its position.
I must admit I am a bit flabbergasted. How can you not understand what you read? And if a portion of Hacker News users, who are likely to have above average cognitive ability, don’t understand this, how poorly does the rest of the population understand the core ideas of how their political system works?
I'm not sure which Constitution you read but apparently it was a different one than the one I read.
Congress was not set up to be more powerful than the other branches. The president can veto laws that Congress tries to pass and the Supreme Court can also completely undo laws that Congress has passed.
There are degrees. I don’t think congress has been this weak before in our lifetime. And most people seeming not to care scares me.
I have been looking at productivity numbers for congress over the past decades. And I don’t get why people aren’t furious over the current congress not doing their job.
That is rubbish. I loathe Trump more than most, but there's no serious claim that he wasn't freely elected in 2024. There appears to be a lot of buyer's remorse and we'll see what happens in the mid terms. But (sadly) Americans asked for this and they got it.
The opposition refused to address internal issues with the incumbent until they were painfully evident, then switched in a much weaker candidate in the final months who had never won a primary.
Had a stronger candidate been offered from the beginning, Trump well could have lost.
In a way, America didn’t ask for what it got. America voted for a guy who claimed to have never heard of Project 2025. It got Project 2025.
Also, Trump ran on a populist message. Yet if you look at what he has done materially since he got into office, it seems his true allegiance is with the billionaire elite.
Gerrymandering alone would be enough to disqualify the US elections as 'free and fair' by many standards. And that's before we get into dollars are votes and other little details.
Indeed. There's plenty of other forms of disenfranchisement (restricted polling access, overly aggressive purging of voter rolls, etc)
It's a pity that this is perceived as such a hot-button partisan topic, because that's not my intent -- I just want to see free and fair elections.
The more distressing fact is that despite my assertion of election fuckery, there's clearly a large number of people that are willing to vote against their best interests because they are so easily swayed by anger and hate. Democracy really is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
Gerrymandering is atrocious and anti-democratic but it didn't affect Trump's election. States' electors are winner-take-all[1] based on statewide popular vote so district boundaries don't factor in.
[1] I just learned there are two exceptions, Maine and Nebraska. But they have few electors (9 total between them) so this was not significant in the 2024 election.
But it does affect congressional elections, and despite the effective neutering of the congress, having a majority there is crucial for maintaining power.
I don’t really care to get involved of the affairs of foreign governments. This isn’t about “narcoterrorism” or democracy. You’re a fool if you think that.
I don't really care what it's "about". I care that the Venezuelan people get their democracy back. Even if Trump is doing this because the voices in his head told him to do it, ending Maduro's rule is a step in the right direction.
Well first the Venezuelan people will have to wait while the Trump administration runs their government (the remaining Maduro administration) and oil fields until a stabile transition can take place as determined by the US government. So they haven't gotten their democracy back yet.
And Trump has decided the Nobel peace prize winner doesn't have enough support of the people to take over. So whatever democracy there is to be had in the future seems to be up to a foreign government.
Yes, foreign intervention worked wonderfully in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the world. We should also thank Russia for trying hard to extend its thriving democracy to Ukraine.
That just shows that popular will is not a justification for something. If the popular will was self destructive would a powerful entity be justified in giving them what they desire?
> If Venezuela recovers and improves, are you willing to fundamentally change your opinion about US interventions?
Uhh, no?
My opinion is that US interventions are incredibly risky. There have been numerous successes. There have also been numerous failures. Both have required immense resources and focus from us.
Some interventions are worth the risk, and others are not. I have not seen any compelling rationale for the risk-reward of this particular intervention, and have very low hopes for the follow through, which makes the risk-reward calculus even worse.
You don't think Venezuela having the largest oils reserves on the planet and it being a strong ally to Russia, Iran and China make the possible reward fairly significant from a US standpoint?
Sure it's conceivable. Can you go a level deeper on your analysis?
Are you suggesting that cutting off oil flow to those nations will be advantageous to us? Is this like... tomorrow? During a potential armed conflict? When?
By what specific mechanism does the US assert "control" over the oil? POTUS just now said it's via a ground occupation "until transition of power." What's the transition plan?
Not cutting off, but it's enough that the US increases oil supply which lowers the prices to significantly hurt Russia and Iran. And then you have China which is the main consumer of Venezuelan oil so you get another point of leverage.
Also probably helps to ensure the petro dollar is here to stay for longer.
Obviously this is a very shallow analysis, and there's definitely significant risks, but I do think it's obvious that it has large potential upsides.
It's not shallow, it is gullible. Of course Trump has an angle otherwise he wouldn't have done this. We can speculate about what the angle is but there is absolutely no way that he did this for the good of the Venezuelan population.
Edit: So, that took only 8 minutes, the other shoe just dropped, it was about the oil after all. Where do I collect my check?
Oh yeah, I'm certain the intent behind this wasn't for the sake of the Venezuelan population, but that in itself doesn't mean it won't result in a better outcome for the population (but also not saying that it will)
The thing I occasionally say about Trump is: "Even a stopped clock is right twice a day."
We ("the opposition") can't get into the frame where we say that everything Trump does is wrong. It's not frequent, but sometimes - yes even for totally wrong reasons - he does things which are probably right. Our identity needs to be more than just "the opposite of what Trump does", otherwise the Trumpists will frame all debates around issues that make us look crazy, rather than the issues that demonstrate blatant grift and criminality.
If Maduro is gone, it's a good thing. Let's go back to talking about the clear and obviously terrible things Trump does. Don't let them change the subject.
Agree with your overall sentiment but this is just a ridiculous position to hold at this point. History is absolutely full of horrible people being toppled just for more horrible people to take their place. There is literally no evidence whatsoever of a plan for post-Maduro Venezuela. At all!
They're either acting completely clueless for the cameras for some unknown reason, or this is very likely going to go really badly.
Venezuela has already been going really badly, by nearly any quantitative metric of "how going". This is a country that - a couple decades ago - was a rare success story of democracy and prosperity in Latin America.
I think the Venezuelans will work it out, despite Trump's ineptitude.
I can appreciate that but taken to its conclusion it's a recipe for paralysis and complacency. It always could be worse, so let's just let sit here and let shit happen?
Unlike all those places you mention, Venezuela has a democratic tradition which was only recently derailed. This isn't some middle eastern theocratic monarchy. It's "get back on track" not "find new tracks where none existed before".
No, shit can always get worse so act carefully and with a plan.
I and many others are asking for evidence of such a plan. The US administration has denied the existence of such a plan.
Maybe those factors you mention will turn out to be relevant or even determinative, and maybe not. I suspect in absence of an actual plan, the mere tradition of democracy will not suffice.
The Trump administration is incompetent to manage a pre-school, let alone world affairs. We're not going to get a plan. The best we can hope for is an occasional random steps vaguely in the right direction.
Maduro in prison is an improvement from Maduro still in power. Accept it as a tiny win and move on.
Frankly insane position to hold ~24 hours after the events and with the information currently available.
You are aware you're allowed to say, "it'll take some time for this to shake out sufficiently to understand whether it's a tiny win, a huge win, net-neutral, or regionally catastrophic," right?
The future is always uncertain. Sometimes you just have to take the rare chances afforded. "Maduro suddenly recognizes the value of democracy and transitions power to Gonzáles" wasn't on the table.
I'd push the delete button for every unelected dictator on the planet if I could. Repeatedly. It's morally offensive not to.
China is heavily dependent on oil imports and a big part of Germany's defeat in WW2 was due to difficulties obtaining oil. This move may - if successful - change the calculation over Taiwan
> Ethics debates are not served by utilitarian arguments.
There isn't just a single universally agreed upon moral framework that serves as the basis for ethics.
Depending on whether you adopt a Rawlsian, Utilitarian, Libertarian, or Communitarian moral framework, your actions would look different depending on the circumstances.
Specially, the Utilitarian moral framework optimizes for the greatest good for the greatest number. Willing to sacrifice the few of the many. It might not be your or my moral framework, but I don't know that we can rule it out as a valid way to approach ethics.
> Specially, the Utilitarian moral framework optimizes for the greatest good for the greatest number.
No, the proponents of the utilitarian moral framework try to justify illegal actions retrospectively if the outcome was good and refuse to take responsibility if it is bad.
Ethics should guide your decisions beforehand and require you to take responsibility for all possible outcomes.
Are you arguing that Utilitarianism isn't a way to guide decisions? And are you saying it is an invalid moral framework?
FWIW, many ethicists suggest using multiple frameworks and would argue using Utilitarianism for policy.
For example, in the EU utilitarianism is rarely used as the sole moral foundation but serves as the primary tool for practical decision-making and public policy. Most visible in how the EU balances competing interests to achieve the "greatest good".
If your hand is on the track switch, you're just as responsible for the trolley no matter which way it goes. Walking away from the switch does not absolve you.
The issue with regime change is whether there's enough political cohesion in a country's population after a despot / autocrat is removed.
"The opposition" is rarely a large and representative enough group to effect national power transition. (Btw, thanks for flagging that incorrectly as affect, Apple)
Especially in multi-ethnic states, most cohesive national identities are forged through extremely popular singular leaders.
Unfortunately, those are exactly the same leaders external regime-change initiators are wary of (too independent).
This year's winner of the nobel prize is highly organized and ran a parallel election campaign, which was obviously dismissed by the Maduro regime. There is a slim possibility of a peaceful transition given the democratic efforts underway in Venezuela for many years at this point.
POTUS just said she's not involved, won't be involved, doesn't have the support necessary to lead. Who does? Unclear. His plan appears to be: "oil companies come in, sell the oil" and I'm seriously not exaggerating.
> His plan appears to be: "oil companies come in, sell the oil"
In terms of nation-building, it's not the worst plan. See Carville's "It's the economy, stupid."
Popular support of any government is mostly (a) quality of life & (b) individual freedom. Quality of life is directly correlated to the economy and public finances.
If someone can quickly boost Venezuelan oil production, and therefore state revenue, then all sorts of social funding programs become feasible.
The issue with autocracies is that they selectively enrich key supporter groups (internal police, military) at the expense of others (wider population).
If you can substantially boost public revenue, then you don't have to make a tradeoff -- everyone gets more!
And there are certainly worse beginnings for new governments.
(All of this ignoring the flagrant violation of international law, international ramifications vis-a-vis Taiwan, climate change, etc.)
Well, Trump is probably the least qualified person in the administration to ask that question of, while at the same time no one wanted to risk contradicting his fancies on recorded television.
A bad look, but I seriously doubt the state department doesn't have some sort of plan for continuity of government.
Especially since, in critical difference with post-Hussein Iraq, no one in this administration seems ideologically opposed to working with the old guard, if they put on new colors.
Would be very surprised if the remaining elements of the government aren't put in temporary charge with guidelines (no killing protestors, freeing political prisoners, monitored elections on X date, etc.), then things are left business as usual.
With additional strikes if anyone tries to buck the system.
But higher placed members of corrupt regimes tend to be pretty pragmatic about their own skins when the winds shift, so I'd be surprised if anyone goes to the mat for a leader who's already been extradited.
The President of the United States has stated over and over now that there is no transition plan. There is no successor. There is no plan for elections.
This isn't "he hasn't been asked" or "he has declined to comment." He has said affirmatively there is no plan.
So either he's lying or there's no plan.
In either case, my presentation is correct, and your assumptions are completely unfounded.
Trump's Reaganesque in Reagan's weaknesses, without any of his strengths. Except maybe charisma to some people.
At this point in his second administration, I'm firmly convinced that the bulk of the details aren't communicated to him and/or he forgets them.
Big decisions? Sure, he makes yes/no. But "Let me hear the plan for day x+1?" In what universe would the Trump we've seen ask that question? We're talking about the McDonald's guy.
> I'm firmly convinced that the bulk of the details aren't communicated to him and/or he forgets them.
But at the same time:
> time no one wanted to risk contradicting his fancies on recorded television.
So they're making plans, but they won't actually commit to any of the plans because in the end the plans are meaningless and Trump is going to push for whatever he wants at the moment. Doesn't that make the actual plans practically worthless?
Under the hood here you're assuming Trump is (largely) incompetent to lead but surrounded by people who 1) know that and 2) are competent themselves.
A scarier possibility, which I think is actually far better evidenced, is that he's surrounded by people who largely believe he's competent (because it's a cult) and who are themselves not competent at all.
I think the people around him believe (1) he's competent to win the popularity contest that is an election & (2) he's vengeful against any perceived disloyalty.
There are probably some true-believers among his cabinet, but most of those are evidenced by their paper-thin CVs and lack of their own power-bases (Hegseth, Bondi, Rollins, Chavez-DeRemer, Turner, McMahon, Noem, Zeldin, Loeffler).
>In terms of nation-building, it's not the worst plan.
Building which nation? The despotic dictatorship of USA one would have to assume you mean. The profits are no more likely to go to Venezuela's further development than they are to bring in universal health care in USA.
QoL is nothing if it is bought through the pain and suffering of others.
I don't know why you think this is a new beginning, it's just extension of USA's dictatorship to ensure even more people suffer and the USA oligarchy gets even more insanely wealthy.
The popular will is the woman the majority voted for. Trump already said she will not be allowed to run the country, that the US will and that we will help them develop, read steal, their oil.
The majority voted for Edmundo González, and María Corina Machado has called for him to be recognized as the leader of the nation.
It's complicated because Maduro banned her from running in the last election (and still lost anyway). In a just world maybe she deserves the position. But if we want to restore democracy in Venezuela, González would be a natural place to start (along with new elections).
For what it's worth he did stop the Taliban from raping the wives and daughters of the opium farmers. Obviously not for humanitarian reasons but I was rather fond of how he dealt with it even if for the wrong reasons.
Not every country is Iraq or Afghanistan. At least here it's fairly clear that removing Maduro reflects the popular will of Venezuelans.