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this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2024
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politics
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If all it ever took was one bad president then democracy has already ended and it was always just a matter of time.
This reminds of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy when it describes a planet ruled by reptiles:
[It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..." "You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?" "No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people." "Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy." "I did," said Ford. "It is." "So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?" "It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want." "You mean they actually vote for the lizards?" "Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course." "But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?" "Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in.]
👆 This Douglas Adams bit is the exact situation we find ourselves in now.
One big lesson from Trump's presidency was that many of the rules we thought constrained politicians were only "Gentlemen's Agreements." They held up because everyone agreed to abide by them. When Trump walked in, refused to abide by them, and wasn't immediately struck by the political equivalent to lightning from heaven, all the politicians on the right decided that they could toss those pesky rules aside also.
And Democrats chose to remain straitjacketed by devotion to decorum.
It's a really convenient excuse to not fucking do anything.
Wait... we could have been voting for lizards?
There have been a few dogs elected to Mayor
And at least three alcoholic goats, one after the other, in the same town.
It's just a matter of time til we all die, too, but that doesn't mean we need to kill ourselves now.