Harris-Walz / Dems

[wonko the sane?]

In this thread:
Let's avoid fascism by setting up a government that can control who is elected.

Every president under goes what is supposedly the most rigorous vetting in the free world.

So... ostensibly you already do that. Never mind the sheer economic cost to running for president inherently acting as a paywall to the vast majority of american citizens, as well as the fact that you don't allow naturalized citizens to the position.

EVERY democracy has some level of say over whom can run for highest office. True democracies don't work at this large a scale.

 

[Ungnome]

Putting in an amendment to prevent a convicted felon from being eligible to become president should be the bare minimum. Heck, if we had that in place in 2024, Trump would not have been able to run. He was convicted in May

 

[wonko the sane?]

14th amendment. You already had one.

Part of the US's problem is that all of those systems are built entirely around good faith. They are expected to be self activating. That can't be the standard anymore.

 

[Paladin]

for all intents and purposes the government has ALREADY been shut down since January so an unelected billionaire and his hand-picked squad of toadys can take apart anything they don't understand or believe in.

And the highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate decided the best response was to look at the budget promised to them for doing so then bend over & shout THANK YOU SIR MAY I HAVE ANOTHER.

may Chuck Schumer never know another moments' peace for the rest of his miserable worthless hugging gilded taxpayer-funded luxurious life.

 

[Pocket]

Does Congress have quorum rules? Could every single Democrat simply refusing to show up for work for the next two years do anything worthwhile?

 

[Paladin]

Isn't that exactly what they're already doing?

 

[Ungnome]

14th amendment. You already had one.

Part of the US's problem is that all of those systems are built entirely around good faith. They are expected to be self activating. That can't be the standard anymore.

14th amendment would not apply in Trump's case. He wasn't actually convicted of insurrection, unfortunately.

 

[Axaday]

I wish rules about Congress didn't have to be passed by Congress.

I would like to adopt an understanding that passing a spending bill was a critical requirement of their job. If it ever comes within 30 days of not having a budget, every member of Congress starts getting fined $10,000 a day and if they get to the shutdown they are all fired and arrested. Think we'd be passing stuff at midnight then? That's my sci-fi/fantasy idea. The more grounded real world idea would be that whenever a budget was passed, that is the budget until they pass a law that changes it. Not the traditional annual showdown OR the modern mess where they don't debate what is in it, they just debate how long to extend it.

 

[Pocket]

OK, but then what? All of Congress is now in prison. Are they also out of a job? Do we hold emergency elections to replace them? They can't do their job from prison either.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Functionally, you don't need to change how the individual jobs are done: that aspect has worked well enough till now. What needs to change is just... leverage. You need multiple and unstoppable ways to remove someone from an elected position.

Automatic third party investigations when the suspicion of criminality exists, automatic removal when crimes do exist, simple majority votes for the body to remove members when rules are broken, unstoppable votes when petitioned by the people of the persons district. Recall elections on every level, even the supreme court and president, and of course automatic and unavoidable term limits. Everything needs to get spelled out clearly in law, and enforced by third party, on rules that CANNOT be changed by those bodies: you need referendums and a public vote to change them. None of that "cutting the budget and voting ourselves a raise" bullshit.

 

[Dekafox]

A couple of those would be tricky in the real world:

Mostly thinking of the 51% majority vote to remove one. In a vacuum it makes sense, but once political parties get involved and you end up in a situation where one has that simple majority, they can just eject all the opposing party. That sounds great, until you realize those who oppose everything you care about can do the same thing, and most of those other removal rules don't matter if the district they come from wants that. If they all involved managed to keep their nose clean, they can purge and keep purging. This could be mitigated though with ranked choice voting a multiple feasible parties to naturally prevent any one from getting that majority. Alternatively, make an additional rule that no one party can hold above a 40% representation, but that has its own issues.

The other one I see as potentially an issue is the third party enforcement thing, as that gets into a "who watches the watchers" situation, which is why the constitution ended up with the checks and balances implementation to begin with. If not properly done, the third party would basically become another house of government, and you would need a selection system and way to monitor it to prevent a similar tendency from coming up there, and then who enforces it on them?

 

[Paladin]

 

[Dekafox]

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/19/democrats-town-halls-anger-schumer-00239667

Congressional Democrats — who were hoping to blast Republicans over budget cuts — instead took incoming from their exasperated constituents when they traveled home to host town halls.

It was only weeks ago that House Republicans were facing their own rowdy forums as constituents and liberal grassroots groups protested Elon Musk’s attempt to dismantle the federal government. In response, the House GOP campaign chief urged them to stop holding in-person town halls.
Democrats seized on that hesitance, organizing their own events as a contrast. National Democratic groups even organized a tour to hold town halls in the districts of GOP Congress members who refused to schedule any themselves.
But the congressional recess kicked off with Schumer’s announcement that he would vote to advance the GOP bill to fund the government. And so congressional Democrats returned home to voters exasperated not just by Republicans, but also by their own party’s leadership.

Citing “security concerns,” Schumer canceled public appearances in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York this week for “Antisemitism in America: A Warning,” his newly released book.

Things are certainly going well for them right now.

 

[Rhinox]

What did Chuck expect to happen? Jesus hugging Christ, is he truly that naive?

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Any day now the fever will break. At the gym.

Mother of God, everything in that Daily Show segment is infuriating.

 

[Xaaron]

Biden and Schumer are cut from the same cloth. They really think bipartisanship is still an option, that Trumpism is a fad and the political system will go back to "normal" any day now. But we're too far gone for that. If the system they remember ever truly existed, too few people in Congress or in the voting public even still remember it, much less want it back.

The Democrats can't reset us to the 1980's any more than the Republicans can reset us to the 1950's. The only way out is through.

 

[Pocket]

I'm also willing to bet that most Democrats are actively afraid of getting murdered by Trump's mob. You know, now that we know he has a murderous mob.

 

[wonko the sane?]

That murderous mob doesn't go away until trump does.

 

[Pocket]

Considering how many Iraqis turned out to be fiercely loyal to their leader after we deposed and then killed him, and willing to dedicate the next decade of their lives to making life hell for his replacements afterward, I doubt Trump's death will stop the mob at all.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Nero's fans held out hope for hundreds of years.