Re: The American 2016 Presidential Elections & The Ongoing American Saga
Reply #1702 –
Now Trump has talked some sensible things, such rebuilding infrastructure. Now I'm going to pull a Howie and note that a panelist on NBC noted that congressional Republicans will block the funds. What if he actually has a sensible plan under all his idiotic rhetoric, Trump's problem could be ultimately turn out to the Republicans, not the Democrats.
But let's assume Trump actually meant all the stupid crap he said this whole, Andrew Sullivan notes at least one of the founding fathers saw something like this coming.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.
...
That was George Washington’s Farewell Address.
A country designed to resist tyranny has now embraced it. A constitution designed to prevent democracy taking over everything has now succumbed to it. A country once defined by self-government has openly, clearly, enthusiastically delivered its fate into the hands of one man to do as he sees fit. After 240 years, an idea that once inspired the world has finally repealed itself. We the people did it.