TRUMP DUMP: VOTERS crave crap

"In the rink" by Stable Diffusion

 

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

 Winston Churchill 1874-1965

 

Go figure. Trump gets four indictments, and 91 felonies - his poll numbers skyrocket. A judge accuses him of rape - ‘big deal’. He pays off a porn star - ‘what else is new’. 1,000 Jan. 6 rioters are locked up  - ‘elect Trump they’ll get a pardon’.  Ditto for his Proud Boys on steroids who’ve been tried and convicted. USA today.

Trump’s gift for graft is gold - money pours in.  His base (approx. 30% of voters)  is rock-solid.  And now he’s got an organization behind the screen to ‘support him’. A scary piece in the Economist tells a cautionary tale about a group formed after the 2020 election. Its mission: administrative takeover -  i.e. plant Trump loyalists in the Justice Department, FBI, HomelandSecurity, CIA. The Economist also zeroed in on the rise of AUTOCRATS.

Donkelephant in the wild by Stable Diffusion

But is America ready to ‘terminate the constitution’ - a Trump threat. Dig out the Deep  State’s civil service. Dump the two-term law. Restrict voters’ rights.  The US  electoral system** gave him a win in 2020. Unless Trump is behind bars, it could happen again. But this time he and trained troops will be ready to take over.  Historian John Meacham said the state of American democracy is in crisis. Will the US jump off the cliff? FAFO.

 

"Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others." ** 

* Voters cast ballots for electors versus a win by popular vote. 

** Unknown source, but attributed to Winston Churchill.

Sources: The Economist, internet

Next week: Don’t close your eyes. Plagiarise. Let nothing evade your eyes.*

*Tom Lehrer

Note: We do live in strange times. As mentioned earlier, the cold breeze of authoritarian populism (read: wannabenazism) can be felt here in Finland too, unfortunately. But instead of that, today my mind wonders to election math, which is interesting in itself, even without talking about the misuse of the system, gerrymandering or otherwise. 

Even when trying to be as honest and fair as possible, dividing a set number of seats can get very tricky. We have seen this in the Finnish elections too - the opposition parties (a.k.a. previous government) actually got more votes than the current government, but due to election math, ended up with fewer seats.

CU

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Eki

PS: This video is an interesting introduction to the topic, for those with geeky tendencies: