Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
The Most Important Thing About Democracy
So, anyone here ever taken PoliSci 101? Or wait — here we have the State Department explaining Democracy 101 to benighted, backward regimes to whom democracy must be explained:
That’s the big selling point when you’re trying to sell democracy to people who aren’t sure why this “democracy” thing Americans bang on about is better than a president-for-life, a junta, a monarch, a sultan, a council of faqihs, or a Central Committee of the People’s Permanent Revolution. Peaceful transfer of power. This is what we’ve been earnestly been telling ourselves and the world about why it’s great to be a democracy and why we think they should be a democracy, too. We have a system that allows us peacefully to transfer power. Yes, yes, we know you love your king. True, he’s a descendant of the Prophet, and certainly, the people do love him, that we can see … but are you quite sure all will be well when he dies?
Google “democracy” and “peaceful transfer of power,” and this is what you’ll find:
Yesterday, Donald Trump offered this thought to Chris Cuomo about what would happen if he reached the convention with a lead short of an outright majority:
I think we’ll win before getting to the convention, but I can tell you, if we didn’t and if we’re 20 votes short or if we’re 100 short and we’re at 1,100 and somebody else is at 500 or 400, because we’re way ahead of everybody, I don’t think you can say that we don’t get it automatically. I think it would be — I think you’d have riots. I think you’d have riots. I’m representing a tremendous, many, many millions of people.”
If you disenfranchise those people and you say, well I’m sorry but you’re 100 votes short, even though the next one is 500 votes short, I think you would have problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen, I really do. I believe that. I wouldn’t lead it but I think bad things would happen.
Note: Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans don’t have the kind of superdelegates who can change their votes. So if Trump has a majority of the delegates, there’s no possibility of a contested convention. A contested convention could only occur if he fails to secure a majority. In that case, by definition, the majority would represent non-Trump candidates. Should they decide at the convention to pool their votes against Trump, it would not be undemocratic; nor would it be rigged. While Trump’s supporters would surely have cause to feel disappointed, they would have no cause to feel themselves robbed.
It’s one thing for a media figure or a disinterested observer to say, “Man, that could get ugly, I hope we don’t end up there.” But this is the candidate himself, the man who proposes to be the leader of the world’s most powerful former-democracy, saying, don’t go there, I’m warning you. There could be really bad violence.
This is really dark. We can argue about what the correct word is for a political figure who’s eager to wield the power of the state against his personal enemies, contemptuous of the idea of a free press, obsessed with bizarre conspiracy theories, prone to propagating lies faster than anyone can even keep track of them, and who casually — for the first time in any living American’s memory — proposes violence as a way of transferring power.
“We’re going to open up libel laws and we’re going to have people sue you like you’ve never got sued before.”
“When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. They were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength.”
The editor of National Review “should not be allowed on TV and the FCC should fine him.”
“Sixty-eight percent would not leave under any circumstance. I think that means murder. It think it means anything.”
“I would certainly be open to closing areas [of the Internet].”
“I think our country does plenty of killing also.’’
“Obama doesn’t get along with Putin. Putin can’t stand our president and it’s causing us difficulty.’’
On people selling anti-Trump t-shirts: “Mr. Trump considers this to be a very serious matter and has authorized our legal team to take all necessary and appropriate actions to bring an immediate halt … ”
So, how do you feel about being threatened with violence by Donald Trump? Good? Bad? Indifferent?
Published in General
Sooo, your belief is that he is merely commenting and forecasting, and not trying to impact the outcome in the least through these kinds of threats? Oookay!
Trumps implying that there might be violence does not impress me. I figure it is a negotiation tactic. The GOPe is planning on changing the rules and the game in mid play to get their way. Trump hints that things may go bad (implied violence) for them if they do. The GOPe and the media goes into pants wetting histrionics.
The only thing is that Trumps organization has shown absolutely no ability to project violence in the way that is being suggested. In the case that violence does happens around Trump it is the Left projecting toward him and a very few of his individual followers reacting. Oddly we seem to ignore the Left and pick on the few Trump’s followers that handle being intimidated badly. When Trump’s people start showing up at others events in some sort of organized manner and closing them down then I will get worried that Trump is the tyrant that so many fear. At the moment he is what he has always been. A small man with a large mouth talking big.
Much of the “leadership” of the black community, and the leftist community in general, should be in jail. The organizers of the Ferguson riots, and similar violent “protests,” should be in Guantanamo. If Trump can’t clear the bar of Al Sharpton or Louis Farrakhan, then I think we need a new hash tag. #neverevertrumpever
Perhaps … just perhaps … those who appear to lose all sense of perspective with regard to the candidacy of Donald J. Trump – both his supporters and his detractors, albeit in diametrically opposite fashion – are equally blinded by pure emotion.
No. My belief is that predicting violence is different from inciting violence. Words matter, and I don’t believe in suppressing speech based solely on my interpretation of the speaker’s intent.
Exactly. In 2000, I thought everyone knew that the winner of the most electoral votes won the Presidency, but it took the Supreme Court to remind some people. Because Gore would not be as gracious as Nixon, the Left still has festering wounds.
He can say what he wants. Just don’t be surprised if there are law suits and charges in case of violence erupting right after one of his “predictions”.
It sure is a nice store you have here. This is a rough neighborhood and sometimes violence happens around here to those who don’t get along well with others. It sure would be a shame if something happened to your nice store…
I’m not inciting violence, only predicting that violence may happen and it would sure be a shame if it did.
Basil Fawlty
No. My belief is that predicting violence is different from inciting violence. Words matter, and I don’t believe in suppressing speech based solely on my interpretation of the speaker’s intent.
I’m confused? Is anyone here suggesting suppressing Mr. Trump’s freedom of expression? I see people stating their opinions about what conclusions can be drawn from Mr. Trump’s words.
Predicting violence is different from inciting violence.
For a “leader” to predict violence from his followers suggests either that he believes his followers are justified in becoming violent, or that he believes his followers have a tendency toward unreasonable violence. Right?
That wasn’t an analogy. I was responding to Claire’s claim that the most important thing about democracy was a peaceful transfer of power. That’s clearly not true in the American tradition.
I think Trump’s an ambivalent figure, but given the alternative between him and Hillary Clinton, he’s clearly more on the side of the patriots than she is.
Trump supporters are [redacted].
There, I said it.
If Trump gets a large plurality of the votes, and the nomination is taken away from him, and people riot over it, would that be unreasonable?
It would hardly be the first time there’s been violence at a Republican convention over such issues.
From your link:
“Video footage shows an older gentleman in a blue shirt being violently dragged away by police and then shoved to the ground. When Mr. Herford protests that he is handicapped and would like to press charges for assault against the police officers, a Shreveport police officer is seen smirking in response. … Many observers expressed shock that the establishment would resort to such violent tactics against fellow Republicans.”
Wow! The Shreveport police are also part of the “Establishment”? I wonder why this vast and powerful Establishment, that makes the KGB look like pikers, is allowing Trump to win all these primaries. I guess they just haven’t been paying attention.
And, by the way, yes that would be unreasonable.
Democracy always leads to the tyranny of the Mob. They go together.
Since we live in a Republic, we should extol the peaceful transfer of power in a Republic.
There is no peace in a Democracy, only rule by the Mob. That is exactly what this is becoming.
I will not vote for a candidate chosen by the delegates alone. I suspect the GOP will alienate many voters if the desires of the majority of primary voters are not taken into consideration, regardless of the fact that they are not bound to vote according to those primary voters.
When they’re taking their orders? Yes, they are.
Fetishizing peace is not a healthy mindset. Glenn Reynolds has been observing for years at this point that the folks who are willing to use violence are the people who get what they want. If you concede that tool, you’re surrendering.
The Unions, the Left in the 1960s, the Left today, all push their agenda with force as a backdrop.
People who fetishize peace keep conceding defeat.
It’s not a winning strategy. It’s not been winning.
I think you’re forgetting that historically there’s another side: the people who fight for peaceful transitions of power. The people who fight against the mob.
If you concede that tool to the mob, then yes, the mob will win. That is not the only alternative.
Peaceful is a relative description.
In 2015 the Left indicated that is was quite willing to make violence part of our political discourse. The norms of public debate have already shifted, Trump is saying nothing that anyone perusing the news last year has not implicitly grasped some time ago.
Trump’s Chicago rally was disrupted by fascist thugs, and similar brownshirt tactics marred subsequent Trump rallies. True to their roots, the brownshirts opposing Trump have assaulted police officers. The violence is organized and instigated by groups funded from Obama’s political universe: Soros satellites, MoveOn, Occupy, BLM and others. But Soros has donated a fair chunk of money to John Kasich.)
Meanwhile
Impossible, you say? No.
The Republican electorate by supporting Trump forfeits the confidence of the RNC. The RNC will of course have to take steps.
Trump’s comments/warnings about what might happen if he is denied the nomination even if he has the most votes … are exactly why I object to his behavior. It isn’t the violence implied. It’s the idea that even though he doesn’t have 1237, he is entitled to the nomination anyway – and what’s worse, that the GOP doesn’t give it to him, the GOP must be cheating him – and that would predictably lead to violence.
In other words, he’s manufacturing a grievance, and exploiting it.The party calls for a majority, not a plurality, but Trump is conflating the two. He then manufactures some kind of mistreatment out of it.
The power of democracy is based on the will of the people – the transfer of power should be peaceful because the power belongs to the people, not to the magistrates. No one is stealing something that belongs to the magistrates, so the magistrates have no cause to feel aggrieved.
Trump manufactures the grievance. He feels it’s owed to him.
That doesn’t bode well.
But they’re not in Guantanamo. Until they are, let’s not build a jail just for Trump.
I hear what you’re saying, but this is really close to an endorsement of violence and that’s not in accord with the CoC.
Words fail. But yes, I think Trump’s prediction would be a reasonable response to something like this. Unfortunate that it might come to that, but when leaders stop listening to “we the people” our system of self-government provides for measures…
Please quote the relevant part of the CoC. I just read it and can’t find anything.
If you’re telling me that the CoC for Ricochet is in contravention to the Republican principles of self-government that animate this country, I might just have to leave.
See #8 and #37.
I agree with the point of Claire’s article. Trump did sound threatening, and I resent it very much.
That said, Al Gore still goes around saying he won the election against Bush.
Little infuriates me more than Gore’s constant harping to crowds (not lately, I admit) that Bush “stole” the election.
Gore is a Harvard guy, by which I mean, I know he knows better. He knows stirring people up about the election results is both immoral and inaccurate. For him to trash this electoral system, given his influence around the world, is reprehensible, disgusting, and dishonest.
Trump and Gore have a lot in common.
No, they aren’t. Trump is threatening violence if they don’t change the rules and hand him the nomination despite his failure to secure the majority needed to earn it. A plurality is not a victory; that’s the way it’s always been.
That’s not what he said at all.
Out of curiosity, has there ever been a Republican convention where the biggest vote-getter didn’t wind up with the nomination, even if he only had a plurality?
I am afraid Cleveland had better get prepared for attempts to massively disrupt the Republican Convention, and not just from squabbles between the delegates themselves.
I think the shutdown of Trump’s Chicago rally is a precursor. I would not be surprised if Trump supporters (not necessary delegates or attendees) do not show up en masse as a counter protest and/or to show support for the candidate that won a plurality (if that is the correct term) of the votes available.
I am not a Trump fan, but I don’t fault The Donald for voicing that there could be trouble at the convention. I know he was speaking of his own supporters, but I am afraid there may be a Trump supporter vs. BlacklivesMatter/OccupyWallstreet/Moveon/BillAyers mixup.
Yes, I expect that to happen at the convention and elsewhere. The Democrats are going to riot to provoke reactions so their pals in the MSM can point to how the other side are right wing nut jobs. Truly the safest thing will be if they just shutdown all GOP events until after the election.