There is absolutely no irony there. You are misconstruing the whole thing.
Dirius, just because there was dictatorship of the worst kind in Syria or Iraq, etc., does not mean that there is no dictatorship in the Western world, or the US. Dictatorship comes in many forms. Not just as Assad or Saddam.
The US (and the UK, etc.) are NOT real, direct democracies, where we, the public, the citizens, directly elect our leader. THAT is the real irony, especially since we call ourselves a real democratic set-up!!! The whole system is too confounded here. And, I am not going to go into the politics of it. However, that is the point that David is trying to make. And, that has less to do with Trump (although he has a very dictatorial, tactless style), and more to do with how the country's constitution is set up.
A dictatorship is defined as being ruled by a leader with a concentration of powers that can overrule the legislative/judicial branches of the state. And by doing so he can restrict or abolish the basic rights of citizens without control from anyone. A good example of a modern dictatorship is Venezuela, in which democratically elected president
Nicolas Maduro granted himself powers to abolish the legislative power, and abolishes the right of citizens.
As far as I am aware, none of this has ever happened in the U.S. And given that Trump has been under investigation by congress/senate since he got to office, your presumption that he is a dictator or tyrant seems ludicrous at best.
The U.S., UK, etc. are direct democracies because you elect a representative to your legislative branch (call it senate, congress, parliament, etc.) and you also get to vote for your executive branch leader. The only thing you don't have a direct vote is for the Judicial branch, and this is true for every other democratic goverment in the world, which seems fair given a judge needs to be qualified not popular.
The core of your complain is the electorate college, which as many have mentioned over and over, is a measure implemented in your federal union to preserve the autonomus nature of the individual states. In any case, the state vote is performed by the citizens of the state, so the idea that you don't get to choose is ridiculous.
No! The U.S. is NOT "truly democratic". Taiwan is - truly democratic! And, you need to learn to differentiate before yet again repeating that David is saying that the US is a "dictatorship". You have completely twisted what he said. He did NOT say that anywhere. You are the only one that is calling the U.S. a dictatorship, but alleging David did, and that truly is ironical. You cannot show me one post where David said that, but right here is the quote where you said it! And you are the only one saying it, perhaps you don't even mean too, but are too excited. So, again, cool off and read carefully.
Again, we are not talking about the countries being perfect or not, but distinguishing that the countries are NOT direct democracies and no one can deny that. You cannot negate that just because you are simply comparing the basic definition of democracy with dictatorship.
Oh, really? So, you have never criticized the government and drawbacks in the system, etc. because what can you change there as a single citizen of wherever you live. People discuss their govt., taxes, etc. all the time, day in and day out. And, if you are so interested in a suggestion/resolution. Revamp the constitution, amend where necessary, Let us directly elect our president. Dissolve the electoral college because this whole set-up is skewed and corrupt. There, suggestion made. Now what?
And, since there is so much of harping about the US being a democracy where one live freely, say and do what one wants, then why throw a fit when a U.S. citizen, living in the country, is expressing his own viewpoint about his own government and constitution?
Some quotes from david refer to the current U.S. presidency as a dictatorship (or tyranny which is a synonim).
Also calling him "
not the democratic president" or "
not the real president" is a way of implying he is an illegitimate leader, thus a way of establishing that he usurped his power, as tyrants and dictators do.
But if what you need is the actual use of the word to be satisfied:
He's still Dictator in Chief. It's just the tyranny of the minority instead of the tyranny of the majority. The lack of Checks and Balances is the real issue.
My solution is a direct proportional correspondence between the Popular-vote and the Electoral-vote in each State. One person, one vote, as mandated by the Supreme Court; Presidential elections included, which is not happening under the dictatorship of the winner-take-all Electoral system.
I will explain now why its hypocritical to complain about the electorate college: because you are complaining about it post-election.
It seems to me that everyone was perfectly fine with the EC system before the election, and almost none of the political commentators or vocal activists had anything to say about it (except for some constitutional jurists that have always written on the subject). On the very least, the subject of the EC wasn't a mainstream topic of discussion as it has become since 2016 election.
But now, the EC delivered you a president that you dislike, and everyone seems to allocate the blame on it, because you are dissatisfied with the current president. That, in all honesty, is just whining. The system has been in place for a very long time, but just now you all realised its not perfect? give me a break.
If Hillary would have been the winner, you wouldn't have said anything about the EC. Did any democrat said anything about the EC during the Obama administration? As far as I am aware, during the Obama period, democrats had a majority in Congress, and also the presidency. They could have easily abolished the EC system back then, but why didn't you?
And yes sure you can make suggestions, but unless you can deliver something better, there is no point to it. As I mentioned earlier, in direct democracies you also suffer from having an elected president with only a small number of the population backing him. That is actually the tyranny of the minority. Need examples? What about Austria's right wing president who won with only the backing of 31% of the nation? Almost 2/3 of Austrians don't want him as a president, yet there he is.
You have it way better than most people in the world do. Be realistic about how fair your system actually is. Lets not play dumb, and admit that most of the hate the EC gets is so you can discredit Trump, nothing more.