As someone who spent most of his life in a dictatorship, I don’t think you appreciate how easily a society can slide into a totalitarian state and how apathetic most of the population can become.

It’s also interesting that you served in the U.S. military and didn’t recognize how self-serving and institutionally corrupt it is. I come from a country with an oversized military relative to its government, and the parallels I can draw between its behavior and that of the U.S. Army are uncanny.

How did Ashli Babbitt die? She was shot in the head, on January 6th, at point blank range, by the secret service, because she was trying to break through a barrier that was protecting the vice president of the United States, the man whose job it was to certify the election. Why was she there? Because from the top of the Republican party down, they spread a lie that the election was stolen because they devoid of morals and they knew their followers would believe them. The concerns about democracy are very real.

Read They Thought They Were Free. People who vote for dictators _rarely_ view themselves as enablers of the bad things that come afterwards, even though they are an essential part of the process. Supporters choose to ignore the bad stuff. Let's hope the worst of it is just hot air, but I'm not giving people a pass this time around personally because it's way too dark.

As a non-American, my personal concern for Democracy in regards to the USA is the questionable system of the electoral college which, in my opinion, is one of the worst forms of representative democracy on the planet and certainly not apt for a country so proud of its democratic values.

This also goes hand-in-hand with the black-white thinking of a two-party-system.

+1. America has immense sociopolitical inertia. It is absolutely incomparable to societies like 1930s Germany, 1910s Russia, or post-war China that gave rise to the brutal dictatorships of the 20th century. This a blessing if you are worried about totalitarianism, and a curse if you are hoping for deep structural reform.

"Average Joe" thinks he knows more political science than people who went to school. Inadvertently demonstrates why it's so easy to manipulate the public into voting against their own self interests while convincing them they're somehow smarter than the "elites", who are really just educated people trying to save them.

In Florida 10% of adults are not allowed to vote. In Mississippi, 15% of all black people are not allowed to vote

Florida is particularly bitter because Floridians voted to give back felon voting rights and DeSantis and the judicial branch he controls just declared it unconstitutional

> Most of you do not understand the type of people that built and fought for democracy.

I AM the type of people that built and fought for democracy. My people donate to the ACLU and drive people to the polls. We marched for civil rights and women's rights. We fight voter disenfranchisement and poll intimidators and insurrections.

This is EXACLY why I'm concerned for Democracy.

> I find the concerns for Democracy comical

Trump has explicitly and clearly stated he plans to fill the supreme court with cronies, and then dissolve massive parts of the bureaucracy to instead divert that power to the president. Keep in mind, on top of this, he is also now completely immune from all crimes.

This new-found concentration of power in the president has never before been seen in American politics. It is genuinely worrying, even if you believe Trump will use his new powers in benevolent ways.

I find it less comical. I don’t think my friends or family care that much about democracy… they just want their guy in charge.

Other high ranking military officers that have worked closely with Trump disagree. I might be inclined to believe them over you, unless you've also worked with Trump? Or are you just someone that he would call a 'sucker'?

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/22/us/politics/john-kelly-tr...

America joined the ranks of Russia and China. If you think Democracy isn't threatened, then you believe it never existed

Nice anecdotes you have there, but history suggests that you might have a bit of myopia.

1. Abraham Lincoln said "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." Whether you agree or not, some people think we may be at that inflection point right now. If you think American citizens haven’t lost substantial freedoms in the recent past, then you haven’t been paying attention. Is it at the level of “destroying ourselves”? To be determined, but the potential is there, and some folks really aren’t shy about trying to implement that a policy of reduced freedoms.

2. There are many cases in the last 100 years or so of authoritarian regimes rising because people want order during a time of distress — Saddam, Hitler, Mao, Lenin, and others rose to authoritarian power by offering stability during unstable times. They were welcomed with open arms, and often times people (including and especially the military) were willing to give up their freedoms for this potential for stability. Some folks think that the US is one big destabilizing event from welcoming an authoritarian. You may think this way of thinking is hubris, but none of us will know that it happened until after it has occurred.

I’m glad things have worked out for you, but I hope you have open eyes about how things can go south, as they have in the past.

You should check out the It Could Happen Here podcast!

See, this is a real problem in the US.

People assume that there's going to be some grand take-over event, a third-world coup d'état if you will.

In reality, modern democracies die slowly. Russia was once a democracy, now it's democracy on paper only. What will Americans do, when their courts are infringing their freedom?

Again, it happens slowly. Bit by bit, in the boring court rooms.

Since last time, he survived two impeachments for which he was dead to rights and had the SC declare he has near total immunity for official acts. With a senate majority he knows that he can now operate with total impunity. He can cancel Congressional appropriations, cancel investigations, direct prosecutions and it doesn't matter if he does that illegally and he knows it.

Sounds like the government had been subsidizing your life for quite some time.

Can you explain a bit ?

As somebody not living in US, that's surprising. My opinion is that Democrats did a really shit job - focusing on wrong problems, promoting stuff nobody cares about etc. Trump / Musk did appeal to a lot of people for different reasons, some of which I can understand. But both are grifters and very dangerous in my view.

The winner of this election tried to overthrow the government. You are delusional.

Hopefully, the economy will recover with him as president.