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What would a US dictatorship look like? (1 Viewer)

Risky Thicket said:
Coincidentally, a couple of days ago I watched Hitler's People: A Portrait of the Third Reich on Amazon Prime. It is an excellent documentary. I highly recommend it to anyone. Though the film analyzes and explains how ordinary people embraced Hitler, the parallels to what we are seeing and experiencing now are stunning.

Nazis were the minority. Their unquestionable allegiance to Hitler and the growing hatred and violence of the Third Reich is what we think of when we think of Nazi Germany. They did not, however, represent the majority of Germans. Many Germans went along with it until Hitler's dictatorship made it life threatening to do otherwise. As one person put it, "The German people were not vicious, they were indifferent."
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Some day one of my reading desires is to look back on the Weimar Republic with its dysfunctional parliamentary system. It always sticks out as the thing that gets me very wary about parliamentary systems.
 
Harshaw said:
If he wants to be, he hasn't actually done anything with the powers of the office to try to make it happen, nor even proposed anything which would further it.
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Agreed.

Thus far he's done little more than tweet and talk like a dictator at times. The "powers of the office" haven't allowed him to go the dictator route. The system is designed to prevent it, but I now have little confidence in congress and courts stopping a president who wanted to go down that road if they wanted, assuming one party control like we have now.
 
<alt>doxygen said:
Agreed.

Thus far he's done little more than tweet and talk like a dictator at times. The "powers of the office" haven't allowed him to go the dictator route. The system is designed to prevent it, but I now have little confidence in congress and courts stopping a president who wanted to go down that road if they wanted, assuming one party control like we have now.
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That has been a danger for quite some time.
 
What Behar would be looking at, presuming it's not an order, is just another Era of Good Feelings, which certainly sucked, but it was not a dictatorship.
 
<alt>doxygen said:
You may be right. Hopefully that will partially be resolved this Nov. like it was in 2010.
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Split governments always blunt it. But until all of Congress starts stepping up to its responsibility to legislate, rather than pass everything off to the President and regulatory agencies, the danger grows.
 
Rexedgar said:
iirc, the OP has the next two months free.......:)
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Think of all the books that could be read written by people who know what they are talking about! ;)
 
Harshaw said:
Split governments always blunt it. But until all of Congress starts stepping up to its responsibility to legislate, rather than pass everything off to the President and regulatory agencies, the danger grows.
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What danger, specifically?
 
It would look like War and the end of the Union.
 
Rexedgar said:
What danger, specifically?
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Unaccountable government; an ever-expanding Executive. The less Congress steps up to the plate as the primary branch of government, through whom the People speak, and through which law is made, the more power falls to the bureaucracy and the President. And the courts.
 
Harshaw said:
Unaccountable government; an ever-expanding Executive. The less Congress steps up to the plate as the primary branch of government, through whom the People speak, and through which law is made, the more power falls to the bureaucracy and the President. And the courts.
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So, what’s the end result? Same as the OP topic, yes?
 
I imagine a US dictatorship would very much resemble the Putin dictatorship. Putin (United Russia) enjoys a super-majority in both houses of Parliament, so it's a rubber-stamp exercise.

Almost all judges are members of the United Russia political party. I can't remember the last time a court bucked party doctrine. Even Constitutional cases defer to party ideology.

By the way, a list of GOP lawmakers, all of whom will celebrate the 4th of July in Russia, hoping to meet with Putin.....

Sen. John Kennedy (R/LA)
Sen. Richard Shelby (R/AL)
Sen. Steve Daines (R/MT)
Sen. John Hoeven (R/ND)
Sen. John Thune (R/SD)
Sen. Jerry Moran (R/KS)
Rep. Kay Granger (R/TX)
 
Rexedgar said:
So, what’s the end result? Same as the OP topic, yes?
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Far enough down the road, sure.

It's actually what Woodrow Wilson tried to establish -- a permanent rule by executive bureaucracy, usurping democracy.
 
Harshaw said:
Sorry, my dude, but there isn't.

There's no evidence that the money paid to Stormy Daniels came from the Trump campaign funds. There's a lot of innuendo, but that's not evidence.

There's no evidence that Trump received any benefit from the US government concerning his hotels, which is what is required for an emoluments clause violation.
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What definition of "evidence"? Even when proof beyond a reasonable doubt is concerned, inferences need only be reasonable, not necessary. And there's some seriously wide latitude when it comes to what is "reasonable" in that context.

You say "no evidence", but what you should have meant was "no gold-standard proof".
 
Harshaw said:
Far enough down the road, sure.

It's actually what Woodrow Wilson tried to establish -- a permanent rule by executive bureaucracy, usurping democracy.
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Sedition Act?
 
trouble13 said:
How about in 2008

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I467 using Tapatalk
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2009. That, too, I guess, though the Supreme Court was reasonably balanced.
 
Harshaw said:
Far enough down the road, sure.

It's actually what Woodrow Wilson tried to establish -- a permanent rule by executive bureaucracy, usurping democracy.
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I think there is a point of no return, “down that road.”
 
Rexedgar said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition_Act_of_1918
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Well, yeah, that was part of it. But Wilson implemented quite a few things of a dictatorial, even fascist bent (with his "war socialism" and his uniformed youth corps and propaganda department and . . . so many other things). He despised democracy and didn't mind saying so. (That he was also a virulent racist is almost beside the point.)

Give this a read and see if it doesn't chill your spine. Keeping in mind that he governed this way.

Leaders of Men | Teaching American History
 
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