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US Politics

First in Minnesota and now this. We used to only hear about political violence in far away places. I hope nothing happens in the next little bit. But once something like this starts and there's copy cats, it could get out of hand. It's not possible for law enforcement to set up a perimeter for every political speech.
 
trtcttc said:
First in Minnesota and now this. We used to only hear about political violence in far away places. I hope nothing happens in the next little bit. But once something like this starts and there's copy cats, it could get out of hand. It's not possible for law enforcement to set up a perimeter for every political speech.
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Apparently a lot of hard liners on the right are calling for violence against the left in the wake of this. I hope they make an arrest soon, the justice system needs to function here.
 
There have a been a lot of political motivated incidents recently. On top of the Kirk incident and the incident in Minnesota, there was an incident with someone trying to burn down the house of Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, There was some incident with Nancy Pelosi's family getting attacked. There have been some others I'm forgetting, but yeah, things are getting crazy.

What scares me is the amount of threats coming from the right wing side. I mean almost all of the politically motivated attacks have been coming from them already, and now this happens and they are threating revenge? Each time I think things can't get any crazier, they get crazier.
 
Surrealplaces said:
There have a been a lot of political motivated incidents recently. On top of the Kirk incident and the incident in Minnesota, there was an incident with someone trying to burn down the house of Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, There was some incident with Nancy Pelosi's family getting attacked. There have been some others I'm forgetting, but yeah, things are getting crazy.

What scares me is the amount of threats coming from the right wing side. I mean almost all of the politically motivated attacks have been coming from them already, and now this happens and they are threating revenge? Each time I think things can't get any crazier, they get crazier.
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The right wing rhetoric has definitely been worse, but the more high profile cases have been against right wing figures too. Biden/Obama/Harris didn't almost get assassinated and no one from MSNBC or some left wing commentator was gunned down at a live event. The reality is most of these cases aren't even that political, like the Trump one.
 
There is a well established American culture of assassinating political figures. The more recent rise in the last 10 years in the US of us versus them rhetoric has made its possibility even more likely. It is probably a combination of their gun culture and culture to just throw the guy in power you don't like out. Never under estimate the American habit to just solve their problems with a gun.

We're similar to them in a lot of ways, but I think, even most people in Canadian gun culture circles don't have the mentality that shooting people is an option for solving a problem.

I'm worried about Trump dying in office, by either natural causes or assassination. It could trigger something that could send the US down some dark paths.
 
trtcttc said:
The right wing rhetoric has definitely been worse, but the more high profile cases have been against right wing figures too. Biden/Obama/Harris didn't almost get assassinated and no one from MSNBC or some left wing commentator was gunned down at a live event. The reality is most of these cases aren't even that political, like the Trump one.
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That's what I was getting at. There have been cases on both sides, but the revenge type threats coming from the right side are what worry me. We didn't see that from the left side on the attacks against democrats. It concerns me there could be some actual revenge attacks...at least judging by the stuff I've seen on social media.
 
Jimmy Kimmel just got yanked off the air for joking that Kirk's killer was actually a MAGA Republican. University professors are being fired for speaking out against Trump. How long before we see Democratic politicians arrested for "inciting violence"? Or masked ICE agents standing guard outside voting stations in swing districts, detaining anyone they "suspect" of being a Democra--- err, an illegal alien?
 
Silence&Motion said:
Jimmy Kimmel just got yanked off the air for joking that Kirk's killer was actually a MAGA Republican. University professors are being fired for speaking out against Trump. How long before we see Democratic politicians arrested for "inciting violence"? Or masked ICE agents standing guard outside voting stations in swing districts, detaining anyone they "suspect" of being a Democra--- err, an illegal alien?
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That's what I keep thinking. It feels eerily similar to Germany in the late 20's early 30's. I think most people don't think it could happen in the US, but nobody saw it coming in Germany either.
 
They're going down a dark path. We're all witnessing it. I effort not to consume US news so I don't know what they're actually saying down there. Credit to us and honestly to our politicians, some pretend to be MAGA Republicans, and even they don't seem to be using language like people do down there. Plus we don't have a Oligarchy like they do.
 
It's weird. Kimmel's comments weren't even really over the line. There has been lots of commentary about Kirk that is worse, and could be considered over the line. Once government officials start stepping in to control the media, it's bad. It's all part of the process in how doctorships happen. The only thing that hasn't happened yet, is the military outright supporting Trump and taking over, and Trump jailing all of his opponents, although it seems like he's started down that path already.

I'm trying to think of past democracies that reverted to a dictatorship. By democracies, I mean a true democracy that had been truly democratic for a long period. Russia in the early 2000's and Germany in the 1920's were sort of democracies, but hadn't been a true democracy for any length of time.
 
Surrealplaces said:
It's weird. Kimmel's comments weren't even really over the line. There has been lots of commentary about Kirk that is worse, and could be considered over the line. Once government officials start stepping in to control the media, it's bad. It's all part of the process in how doctorships happen. The only thing that hasn't happened yet, is the military outright supporting Trump and taking over, and Trump jailing all of his opponents, although it seems like he's started down that path already.

I'm trying to think of past democracies that reverted to a dictatorship. By democracies, I mean a true democracy that had been truly democratic for a long period. Russia in the early 2000's and Germany in the 1920's were sort of democracies, but hadn't been a true democracy for any length of time.
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When looking at history, you realize how unusual our current time is. Long, stable, democracies, and how what we're used to is more of an outlier than the norm. Probably not a good sign for the future. The only positive is that Trump is already 79, would be very scary if he was 30 years younger. As much as people like Vance try to emulate him, like most right wing figures around the world, they don't seem to have staying power as much as Trump. Remember when Desantis was supposed to be the heir to Trumpism.
 
Definitely feels like there will be a power vacuum after Trump's time. On both sides of the aisle. That will be the scariest part when there is no one person to either love or hate. When that time comes, that country will be an unstable mess.

IMO a true democracy's government reflects its people. I'm not sure the US government does reflect its people. Gerrymandering has a lot to do with that.

In Alberta we have imported a lot of their tactics to our politics, and I actually think we're the closest reflection of the rural and urban divide that exists in the US. When people generally don't feel like their government reflects them, its frustrating and the political temperature tends to get turned up. I feel that in Alberta. I say all this without watching too closely other regions in Canada.

At least federally the most recent election probably reflected quite accurately where people were at, a close split between the Liberals and the Conservatives. It's why I think I don't feel there is a loud national rhetoric like there was at the end of the Trudeau government.
 
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