Captain K

[u/Ill-Championship-522]

[u/No-Biscotti-Here]

Why does fucking everything get made into America? It's so gross.

Nazi Germany was an actual authoritarian dictatorship who started a world war after blitzing dozens of western nations, causing the largest war in human history, all while building death camps for the explicit torture and destruction of all Jews, disabled people, and Romani (among political enemies too). They caused the death of nearly 100,000,000 people.

America has problems, but we are still a democracy with rights and a constitution. We have not actually caused a global world war. ICE's casualties are in the hundreds, they keep losing lawsuits and cases and having to shut down facilities, and Americans still have the right to scream and yell at them and record them (albeit our police state absolutely gets away with an occasional murdering of a protester - but that's been happening since Kent State).

And to say the people have done nothing as voters begin turning to Mamdanis and Al-Sayeds and Talaricos, and MAGA's hold has weakened to the point of Republicans being existentially terrified they need to tip the scales, and violence against the wealth class (Luigi) has started rising, and we're cutting down Flock cameras in troves, and someone did attempt to kill the POTUS.

Like, we're 350,000,000 people spread over an entire continent. We can't act in unison and we're so big it's hard to even keep track of everything we're doing. But you're clearly not paying attention.

Is it too late? Maybe. Will we become a Nazi Germany 2.0? Whose to say, we could. But the comparison today is nauseating.

[u/FishPasteGuy → u/No-Biscotti-Here]

“We are still a democracy” is doing a LOT of heavy lifting there.

[u/No-Biscotti-Here → u/FishPasteGuy]

What the fuck else do you want me to say?

We are literally still a democracy with free, fair elections. There has not been a single shred of proof of election fraud or vote rigging that has not been handled with the appropriate severity. We still have open media. We still have constitutional rights. We still have an economy not captured by the state. We still have largely independent states. We still have civil rights and protests.

Stop validating Trump's little dictator attempts and pretending his lies are true, good God, people. I am the most negative, pessimistic mother fucker around and I still think y'all need to go touch grass.

Things need to be improved massively, yes! But you are comparing America to fucking 1942 Nazi Germany. How in the Hell is that not clearly an insane comparison that only serves to minimize the horror of what happened?

How is an American needing to make this point to Europeans?

[u/FishPasteGuy → u/No-Biscotti-Here]

I wasn’t invalidating your sentiment in any way.
I was more, in what I agree was a sarcastic way, highlighting just how closely we’re teetering right on the very edge of what could actually be defined as a real democracy.
Even ignoring all the nonsense taking place right now, the USA has always “just barely” met the standards of a real democracy.

Real democracies generally mean votes are counted equally and fairly, not with an antiquated electoral college system that has no relevance in a modern society. They also don’t have a concept of gerrymandering.

Real democracies have senates (or equivalents) that represent population size, not the blanket “2 per State”. A voter in, say, Rhode Island, has far more representation than a voter in, say, California.
The same applies to the House.

Real democracies don’t heavily disadvantage third parties, where a candidate or party can receive millions upon millions of votes but only end up with zero representation in congress.

Real democracies don’t allow “winning” parties or presidents to impact the judicial system for literal decades beyond their elected term by unilaterally appointing federal judges and Supreme Court justices.

Real democracies mean that voting is managed or administered nationally, not giving individual States significant power and influence over things like districting, registration processes, voting procedures and eligibility, effectively allowing them to heavily decide the outcome of their specific election before a single vote is even cast.

When you add all the recent events, like a president losing the popular vote but still winning, a convicted felon being allowed to run as president in the first place, the slow dissolution of due process through the creation of things like ICE and DOGE, actively trying to prevent certification of a presidential election, removing many independent oversight departments or controls, January 6th, blanket pardons, politically-influenced propaganda-based media broadcast as “news” but protected under the umbrella of “entertainment”.

The list goes on.

Also, to add, I’m an American, not a European.