>>The US barely survived as a democracy under Trump.

what??

>>It was literally a matter of Pence refusing to play along and the secret service refusing to put Trump on the Capitol

Things that never happened for 1000 Alex....

Even if Pence has "played along" the outcome would have been the same, this narrative that the US was on the "razor's edge of democratic collapse" is insanity.

>>with a much weaker president.

The current problem has come about because for the last several decades (almost 100 years), and with an accelerated pace we have consolidated more and more power into the federal government at large, and the office of president via the creation of a massive administrative "4th" branch of government that should be unconstitutional on its face.

The problem is not who or what office has the power. The problem is power itself...

The only rational way to curb the corrupting influence of power is to limit it, and distribute it as far and wide as possible

Any concentration of power is bad

> Any concentration of power is bad

Multiple failed, weak democracies that were subsequently replaced by dictatorships, several in France, would beg to differ.

It's a balance between centralization (stability) and decentralization (individualism).

Too much of either is corrosive.

> Even if Pence has "played along" the outcome would have been the same, this narrative that the US was on the "razor's edge of democratic collapse" is insanity.

All my friends in Classics, familiar with stories about how ancient coups worked, were terrified. You really think that if Pence had refused to certify the vote, and had instead "certified" some alternate set of electors, and Trump and all his faction had claimed uniform victory, that somehow the army & police and everyone else would have stood against it? At best we'd've had a civil war.

> At best we'd've had a civil war.

The best part of that January was that a coup and/or civil war did not happen. The US got on with business. It could have went bad, but it did not do so.

A coup doesn't have to be successful to be a coup.

> The best part ... was that a coup ... did not happen

Strong disagree: a half-assed, incompetently executed, failed bank robbery is still classed as and prosecuted as "bank robbery", there is no separate legal category for "attempted bank robbery".

It's the same with a failed coup. "the coup failed pathetically" is categorically different from "a coup did not happen".

There was no coup attempt in the US. Trump was legitimately elected, and proved to be competent as a president, if somewhat weak due to opposition from the entrenched bureaucracy ("deep state"). He was certainly less of a warmonger than his immediate predecessors or successors, for which the world should be grateful. All the hysteria about him proved to be just that.

Well we can't say he didn't do anything strange. Firing huge portions of the state department to replace them with loyalists, attempting to dismantle the EPA (the only agency keeping track of aging nuclear submarines and, you know, that whole climate change thing), exiting the Iran nuclear deal for essentially nothing. Those are just from the top of my head but apart from the constant social faux-pas being signal boosted to the entire world, there was a very long chain of legitimately frightening actions that led to fears about him being relatively justified. Then there's the whole "big lie" and all the actions leading up to it. No one could rightly say he _wasn't_ attempting to seize continued power. I don't think it was like a full military coup, but there were definitely concerning actions

> the only agency keeping track of aging nuclear submarines

citation needed. Even the EPA's own page provides the actual agency "keeping track" of them:

https://www.epa.gov/radtown/nuclear-submarines-and-aircraft-...

(hint: it's the DOD and Navy, right at the top of "where to learn more")

Also, despite his stupid rhetoric, his diplomacy facing China was so miserably bad that they now own military bases all over the world and are set up to challenge us with more than just saber rattling.

Repeating "China is so bad" into a microphone a thousand times turns out isn't actual leadership.

I can't believe people downvote replies to this and not this ridiculous partisan statement.

The trump derangement syndrome is one of the least undemocratic things I've seen in US politics.

The whole Jan 6 narrative is also quite ridiculous. Akin to the FBI manufactured terror plots to continue having funding.

I still remember people protesting the election the next day after trump won and claiming he'd put minorities in concentration camps.

All we ended up with was hysterics by the opposition party, tweets, surprisingly less war than usual (but still increase in spending in defense and not really draining any swamp) and some diplomacy and little more. But hey, since "literally Hitler #23 (aka repub president) was in power we had to pretend he was a Russian spy for years and that the election was stolen/hacked.

The insane partisan bias displayed my most tech giants percolates so strongly that people have lost the ability of nuance. It's either the whole package or nothing (and this goes for red or blue, the biggest US false dichotomy).

During the Trump/Biden elections, I distinctly remember the "these elections probably are also being manipulated by the Russians right now" narrative being dropped the moment it became obvious that Biden's winning. Well, if the right candidate wins, the elections must have been fair.

The elections can be skewed with different kind of manipulation (social media, troll farms, electronic ballot hacks) and the popular candidate can still win.

It's fair to assume Putin would try to influence the elections in trump's favor as he would have been beneficial for him.

The Ukraine invasion would have been much easier if trump had been relelected, finished pulling out of nato and kept the more isolationist policy that was in effect during trump.

IMO trump was also doing a lot of damage to the US and it's position on the world stage which is also beneficial for Putin.

Trump was also just openly very favorable to Putin, considering him a "friend" (which is insane) and trusting him over his own intelligence community.

> The Ukraine invasion would have been much easier if trump had been relelected, finished pulling out of nato and kept the more isolationist policy that was in effect during trump.

It wouldn't have occured because NATO and the US wouldn't have been escalating it the way they did post and pre Trump.

I know this is not the right narrative (TM) but for anyone who remembers wars are not about good Vs evil but geopolitics, they'll realize the interests at play.

But hey, Iraq has WMDs and Vietnam... Er... Something.

And even if democracy ends up dying in France, the French have the history of overthrowing governments; they did it several times before, they can do it again if push comes to shove.

> It's not unlikely that democracy in France will not survive LePen.

Not sure what you meant but I would say that it is not likely that democracy in France will survive LePen.

She's just like her dad (or even worse) but much more savvy about the packaging.