Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Democracy Index 2016

eiu.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 50 posts

Re: Democracy Index 2016

#31

Post by chrisrhoden »

pabloski wrote: post #30
chrisrhoden wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because of a further erosion of trust in government and elected officials there. Guessing it is actually a combination of very low approval ratings across the board and the fact that the guy who was elected is encouraging distrust in the system. So if you don't approve of / trust him, you don't trust the government. If you do trust him, you don't trust the government.

"So if you don't approve of / trust him, you don't trust the government. If you do trust him, you don't trust the government.", are you talking about Obama/Clinton? The ones who have destroyed the Middle East, armed the syrian terrorists, buried Osama Bin Laden without showing its corpse ( but they showed Gaddafi's one, and he was muslim too, really strange ). And the same who are spouting nonsense on the "russian ha…

What you're describing is the first half of what I said. And you're right, there has consistently been a sizable percentage of the electorate who doesn't trust the government.

What's relatively new is that now, the President is asking people who are on his side to distrust the rest of the government.

Re: Democracy Index 2016

#32

Post by akjainaj »

chrisrhoden wrote: post #26
akjainaj wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because of a further erosion of trust in government and elected officials there. As perceived by the media... the same media who wanted the other candidate to be elected.

I'll assume you downvoted me because you think that the article is wrong and not because you think I am wrong in my assessment of what the article is saying. I don't disagree that the media at large would have preferred the other candidate. That would be true if the media was a perfect statistical representation of the country, and the media is not, it's largely focused in population centers, where the preference was…

I can't even downvote.

Re: Democracy Index 2016

#33

Post by briandear »

ForrestN wrote: post #13
agnsaft wrote: post #2

Are they trying to say that the democracy is now worse because the wrong guys was elected?

No. The new administration is systematically undermining the norms that held up our strong democracy, on purpose. Any student of history recognizes moves like lying about crowd sizes, delegitimizing peaceful protests, and undermining the press. The president is lying daily about millions of people voting fraudulently; why should anyone have any confidence in our democracy, whether you somehow crazily believe him, or…

Lying about crowd sizes undermined democracy? As far as delegitimizing protests -- how about the delegitimization of Tea Party protests? How about the attempted delegitimization of the president by the press by suggesting the Russians are responsible for his election?

We could talk about the lying of the government when they repeatedly and officially stated that Benghazi was because of a YouTube video.

My point -- nothing has changed -- only the people doing the lying and deligitimizing.

I get it, your person lost and you're mad about it -- but don't pretend that Trump is any worse than the guy that came before.

Same game, different players.

Re: Democracy Index 2016

#34

Post by briandear »

bildung wrote: post #17
agnsaft wrote: post #2

Are they trying to say that the democracy is now worse because the wrong guys was elected?

No: " The downgrade was not a consequence of Donald Trump, states the report. Rather, it was caused by the same factors that led Mr Trump to the White House: a continued erosion of trust in government and elected officials, which the index measures using data from global surveys. In total, it incorporates 60 indicators across five broad categories: electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political…

However had Hillary won, this report would be different.

Re: Democracy Index 2016

#35

Post by ForrestN »

decaysackparity wrote: post #29
ForrestN wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The new administration is systematically undermining the norms that held up our strong democracy, on purpose. Any student of history recognizes moves like lying about crowd sizes, delegitimizing peaceful protests, and undermining the press. The president is lying daily about millions of people voting fraudulently; why should anyone have any confidence in our democracy, whether you somehow crazily believe him, or…

You seem to be going with the assumption that previous presidents told the truth. Trump is not as charismatic with the lies like Obama.

No. Any reasonable analysis comparing the two presidents shows immediately that Trump is in a whole other league. I'm not saying Obama was perfect, but he was most often misleading. Trump is saying the sky isn't blue, over and over again, and then forcing his communications team to say so as a loyalty test. The New York Times has now put "lie" in headlines describing Trump multiple times, and he's been in office less than a week. In a long campaign and then eight years governing that never once happened with Obama.

Re: Democracy Index 2016

#36

Post by shuntress »

chrisrhoden wrote: post #31
pabloski wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"So if you don't approve of / trust him, you don't trust the government. If you do trust him, you don't trust the government.", are you talking about Obama/Clinton? The ones who have destroyed the Middle East, armed the syrian terrorists, buried Osama Bin Laden without showing its corpse ( but they showed Gaddafi's one, and he was muslim too, really strange ). And the same who are spouting nonsense on the "russian ha…

What you're describing is the first half of what I said. And you're right, there has consistently been a sizable percentage of the electorate who doesn't trust the government. What's relatively new is that now, the President is asking people who are on his side to distrust the rest of the government.

This is the scariest part.

I have a hard time seeing how his team's assertion of "alternative facts" (seemingly designed/delivered to undermine trust in every system we have built for the last 200 years) can lead to anything other than descent into fascism.

Re: Democracy Index 2016

#38

Post by calvin_c »

ekianjo wrote: post #25
calvin_c wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they're trying to say that the democracy is now worse because we have a leader who is lying to the media, threatening voting rights based on unsupported claims, silencing scientists from sharing publicly funded research, and is charging journalists with felony charges for covering protests against him.

How about the previous President who ignored the Constitution blatantly (4th Amendment anyone?) and continued the global surveillance of US Citizens without any due process (unless you consider Secret Courts one?), and lying blatantly about it in the first place? Does that count for anything?

Certainly does, which is why our score went down last year before Trump took office.

Re: Democracy Index 2016

#39

Post by shuntress »

ForrestN wrote: post #35
decaysackparity wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be going with the assumption that previous presidents told the truth. Trump is not as charismatic with the lies like Obama.

No. Any reasonable analysis comparing the two presidents shows immediately that Trump is in a whole other league. I'm not saying Obama was perfect, but he was most often misleading. Trump is saying the sky isn't blue, over and over again, and then forcing his communications team to say so as a loyalty test. The New York Times has now put "lie" in headlines describing Trump multiple times, and he's been in office less…

You knew when you wrote this that the only response will be "Thats because the NYT wants Obummer and hates Trump"

How is it even possible to come to the table when we cant both agree "Most large news sources come close enough to the truth"?

Just look at the crowd size thing. We can't even agree on a basic simple fact. We have to fix that before we can even think about starting to discus larger issues. But the issue of "We can't agree on basic simple facts" is a large issue so I guess we are just boned.

Re: Democracy Index 2016

#40

Post by shuntress »

briandear wrote: post #33
ForrestN wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The new administration is systematically undermining the norms that held up our strong democracy, on purpose. Any student of history recognizes moves like lying about crowd sizes, delegitimizing peaceful protests, and undermining the press. The president is lying daily about millions of people voting fraudulently; why should anyone have any confidence in our democracy, whether you somehow crazily believe him, or…

Lying about crowd sizes undermined democracy? As far as delegitimizing protests -- how about the delegitimization of Tea Party protests? How about the attempted delegitimization of the president by the press by suggesting the Russians are responsible for his election? We could talk about the lying of the government when they repeatedly and officially stated that Benghazi was because of a YouTube video. My point -- no…

"I can assault women and get away with it because I'm so rich"

Imagine if, when Obama was first running, we found an old recording from the 90's of him saying "Yeah, man, fuck the police. I can't stand white people." then while halfheartedly apologizing he stressed that it was just "street talk."

That Obama never did anything like that is a big reason for him being preferable to Trump.

Post reply on HN