And you are arguing with fallacies and emotion. Asking broad question to bring emotion without actually backing that up factually. Straw manning the others argument by reducing it to dislike of physical appearance, or simply directed stupidity. And then making vague assertions that they are "missing the big picture".

Please, friend, instead of attacking the man you should attack the argument. Give us the why to all of these assertions. What is the bigger picture? What actually could go wrong? Argue with facts please. Let's not turn this into a flame war

I agree my tone is inappropriate. I just can't help it, when it's about completely missing the big picture, blaming the wrong persons, and falling into fascist-like tactics and traps.

Here's a copy paste of my other comments, I hope it gives some elements of answer:

1. Just google Melenchon and Bolivarian alliance. Melenchon dreams of making France be part of an alliance with Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, to name a few, with Iran and Russia as observer members. Sounds like he loves "democracy". He also had some crazy outbursts, screaming things like, "I AM THE REPUBLIC", on camera, that would have ended any other politician career. But he gets a pass, somehow.

2. In February 2022, Zemour, MLP and Mélenchon were all supporting Putin, his stance against the "evil US", saying that Putin would never invade Ukraine, that it was all US propaganda being spoon-fed to Europe. Then the invasion happened. Then they blamed the invasion on US, of course, and questioned the reports of war crimes, and justified Russia invasion by saying it was defending against "NATO aggression". But then, when Russia started to loose, they became "pacifists", saying NATO was prolonging the war by helping Ukraine...

If they were Russian assets, they wouldn't behave much differently, would they?

Same smell on both sides of the political spectrum. Who would have thought? Crazy, right? Like, imagine if far-right Hitler made a secret pact with the communist Soviet Union. Sounds familiar?

Not sure what Melenchon is doing in its list as one of it core element of its political platform is to have a new constitution with less power to the president, more counter powers, more power "to the people"

Just google Melenchon and Bolivarian alliance. Melenchon dreams of making France be part of an alliance with Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, to name a few, with Iran and Russia as observer members. Sounds like he loves "democracy". He also had some crazy outbursts, screaming things like, "I AM THE REPUBLIC", on camera, that would have ended any other politician career. But he gets a pass, somehow.

I am not a fan of Melenchon. I find problematic his taste for the Bolivarian alliance, or his defense of Cuba. I find problematic the lack of democracy in his political party.

But a new constitution with more democracy is still one of the center piece of his political agenda, and the political agenda of his party. That is not the case of any other major party I think. And there is no reason to believe his party would not act at least partially on it if elected.

He's been mocked big time for his "support" of Venezuela or his outbursts... But Macron and many other French political figures faced bigger scandal without having their career ended ! Why such a focus on Melenchon ?

His views about a new constitution with more democracy are worthless to me, as I see him as a bad faith actor, exploiting the usual populist tactics such as permanent outrage, inflammatory discourse, obstruction of debates, conflictualization of everything, exacerbating existing social tensions, defining democracy around concepts like "the revolution", "the people", etc.

How is it not obvious to everyone? It's obvious to me that would this guy be president, his already very authoritarian tendencies would only get worse. How comes his political agenda is relevant?

He rules his political party as a Great Leader while having no democratic relevance, as he got rejected at all past elections. Not to mention his ridiculous PR stunt when he was boasting about being the next prime minister. He is so full of shit, I'm astonished he still is listened to. He can't get to govern from elections, so he fantasizes about bypassing all that with a good'ol Socialist Revolution™.

So I think there are LOTS of reasons to believe his party (so basically himself) would not act as promised if elected. I think he would quickly identify countless enemies of the People. I think disagreeing with him would make anyone an enemy of the People. Today, it's already quite courageous for any journalist to disagree with him in front of him. The guy has serious anger management issues, and usually addresses such journalists with threats and accusations. Seeing how he behaves on camera, I can only imagine how it is to disagree with him privately.

Now, not saying Macron is perfect by any means, but I'd be curious to hear about these bigger scandals that didn't end his career.

To me your first sentence basically describe so many politicians on the French political scene from all parties ! (except for the "revolution" part which I am deeply surprise to read here) So why do you have such focus on Melanchon ?

Melenchon is not alone, he is with a party with many different people, deagreing on some subject, but tending to agree on a new "more democratic" constitution. Furthermore he would need to ally with other parties, like the Green, who have a strong democracy and pro-democracy tradition.

Furthermore Melanchon himself will probably "retire", does your argument still stand when he goes, or is this FRance Insoumise that scares you ?

I see you switch from defending him (as it's impossible) to "both-siding" it, and pretending I have a "focus" on him, and then hinting that I'm just scared... Sounds like a typical LFI politician. It's disappointing.

So, let's start with "Why do I have such focus on Melanchon?"

That one is just dishonest. Let me remind you of your own answer that started this focus on Mélenchon:

"Not sure what Melenchon is doing in its list as one of it core element of its political platform is to have a new constitution with less power to the president, more counter powers, more power "to the people""

I'm just answering your question and staying on topic... But you try to turn this around as me being a maniac. Just like Mélenchon, you aren't really interested in an honest debate, are you?

You also reach to the disappointing "All politicians are the same to me" argument when the guy you defend is exposed as the imposture he is.

As to your deep surprise about the "revolution" part, I think you might not know about Mélenchon true ideas and background. Here's a talk he gave in 2012, in Venezuela when Chavez won his 5th term: https://www.facebook.com/StopCaSuffit/videos/extrait-dun-dis...

Here's a small part of it: "Qu'est ce qu'on fait, camarades, ça c'est un cas concret de révolution. La révolution, c'est pas un sujet de, heu... C'est un sujet concret! C'est une stratégie qu'il faut mener comme nous meme nous en avons une en France. Et après, il faut, non seulement conquérire le pouvoir mais également l'exercer de manière révolutionnaire!"

In English this would be something like "What are we doing, comrades? This is a concrete case of revolution. Revolution is not just a topic, uh... It's a concrete matter! It's a strategy that needs to be pursued, just like we have our own in France. And afterwards, not only do we need to conquer power but also exercise it in a revolutionary manner!"

That's appealing to me. You can see what I assume is Chavez supporters in the background. Chavez was en-route to his 5th term, closer and closer to achieving President-For-Live. That seems to speak a lot to Mélenchon.

Now, you say that he's not alone, and that other people in his party disagree on some subject, but that they agree on a new "more democratic" constitution. Yeah. Sure. These people define "democracy" in their own vague and populist way. "power to the people" is a overused catch phrase that's usually not precisely defined. It very quickly turns into the various parody of socialist democracies that are just dictatorships disguised as "People Democracy". You know that, right? Do I even have to explain all of that? When you here "People" too much in a politician mouth, you know he's just a conman.

You are acting like an apologist of what clearly is a dishonest megalomaniac with serious anger management issues, using the word "democracy" and "people" to justify anything without ever defining it.

Finally, it doesn't matter if I'm scared by this "FRance Insoumise", as a matter of fact he built this party around his big personality, and made it a nest of populists, opportunists and generally confused people, but nevertheless revolted, angry, chaotic and proud of it. I'm yet to hear anything honest, relevant, or interesting from them. It's just accusations, threats, whataboutism, bad faith and obstruction of debate. They are not "Insoumis", they are angry bigots, ready to be completely "soumis" to their Great Leader in exchange of some revenge against "the wealthy", capitalism, and some vague notion of a conspiracy of "the west" / US / Europe. I guess they are bored of their normal lives, they fantasize of being oppressed to justify their hunger for chaos / revolution / violence but it's really boredom from highly privileged people that think they are slaves, somehow.

It's easy being a communist in a free country. Try being free in a communist country.

Now, I'm not focusing on Mélenchon, you just happened to ask specifically about him. I'd be happy to discuss other disgusting politicians, such as, as I mentioned, Le Pen, or Zemour. There are other bad actors, of course, but these 3 are the most known and the most dangerous. Macron has done/said several thing I don't like (removing ISF taxes, his backward views on cannabis, his recent licking of Elon's ass), but he's not in the same ballpark. I persist: anyone pointing him as THE threat to democracy is completely missing the big picture.

--- clarification and details of my initial point ---

The starting point of this exchange is me saying that I can see Le Pen or Zemmour as a potentiel threat to the current French democracy, but not Melenchon.

Le Pen is from a political party that has a long history of wanting less counter power (ending the "republic of the judge" for example") and more "authority'. And in places where her party got power, there're been some issues with NGOs or political opponent.

Zemmour clearly said that he wants less counter power, and want to care less about human rights for example.

A big part of the conservative right (they need them to get the power) agree with them on those topic. They can have the support of some influential billionaires and medias.

Melenchon and his party clearly said for several years that he wants more democracy with a concrete proposal... In his party there are a strong minority that don't want a less authoritative French state (some used to like Chevenement..) but they are a minority, and they don't want a more authoritative state. None of his allies (he needs them to access and keep power) want a more authoritative state, and some allies want a more democratic state. There is no know authoritative leftist billionaire of influential media.

And important point I forgot, policeman (for sure) and army (I think) vote very predominantly for the far-right, and very little for Nupes.

I don't know how many of them vote for the far right, but why on earth would they vote for NUPES? Mélenchon constantly attacks them, he's on auto-blame mode.

The main point here is that when you don't have the support of police and military at all, the risk for democracy is lower... when you have their support, it is easier to be more authoritative. Do you agree with this ?

A general idea of the vote of police and military https://twitter.com/Cluster_17/status/1544352151467528196?la... (to be taken with some distance, it is a poll from cluster 17)

Note that Melenchon was proposing to hire 10,000 more policemen

--- Answer to your last post ---

1-

To me " permanent outrage, inflammatory discourse, obstruction of debates, conflictualization of everything, exacerbating existing social tensions" or using "vague" undefined word or using "overused catch phrase" can definitely apply to Macron, Darmanin, Ciotti, Valls, Rousseau, Wauquiez... and many others. All mainstream political party. Most of mainstream politicians doing good in the medias in 2023. And I guess we can also say they are "dishonest megalomaniac", and many have as "serious anger management issues".

All mainstream political parties (except perhaps the Greens) have had serious internal democracy problems (including falsifying votes in PS, UMP, LR).

This is bad. This does not give faith in politicians. But it seems that for you this represent a danger for democracy when it comes to Melanchon, but not when it comes to centrists or politician from the right.

- 2- About the revolution.

You said he is "defining democracy around concepts like "the revolution" ; that is absolutely not the case, especially not in the video you sent.

As I said in a previous comment, I find problematic his defense of Chavez or Castro. And this support is of course a little scary when it comes to democracy into the adversity. But Melenchon program being so different (nothing really radical in his platform - especially compared to Cuba or Venezuelan situation), in a country with much more counter power than Cuba or Venezuela, with a political plateform with a more democracy as center piece, and allies strongly against anything more authoritative in the current state... Well, that is not cool, but I don't see a real risk here

- 3 - New democracy and being vague

Most politician are often "vague". This includes la France Insoumise. Still tehy tend to produce a lot of written stuff explaining their positions for the last presidential election for exemple. Including testing their economical scenario with the Banque de France model, or detail plan about army... Here is one thing about the new constitution https://lafranceinsoumise.fr/2023/05/02/passer-a-la-6e-repub...

- 4. La France Insoumise

Your view of la France Insoumise can explain why you fear for democracy... But how did you came to this conclusion ??? That is surprising. I would not be able to say this about any political party in France. Do you know their are business owner, startupers, economists, rich people... supporting La France Insoumise ? I really think you don't know them enough. Know your enemy ;)

- 5- Communism Melenchon is not communist and his polical plateform is not communist, why this quote ?

1- There's no comparing Macron and Mélenchon. Macron is not anywhere close regarding inflammatory discourse, and conflictualization of everything. Imagine if Macron had screamed "I AM THE REPUBLIC" on camera like Mélenchon did.

I'm sorry but if you can't at least admit this, there's nothing we can gain from this conversation.

2- Did you watch the video? It's clear that his idea of governing is "conquer[ing] power but also exercise it in a revolutionary manner!". If he's not talking about his understanding of democracy, then I don't know what he's talking about. In any case he's explicitly supporting using "revolution" and "conflictualization of everything" to "conquer power" and "exercise it in a revolutionary manner". If that doesn't scare you, I don't know what will.

3- I'm sorry but I won't bother read stuff from LFI, they so often fail to be relevant, throwing nice-sounding ideas around, they don't care if they work, everything sounds so easy, "pay people more", "more money to education", "more money to health care", "lower retirement age", "more democracy", "more power to the people". All of that we can't have because of [some target group]. [some target group] are conspiring against "the people". Can't you see it's just a "nice" and empty ideology? It has a name: demagogy and populism.

4- I'm not surprised some powerful people support a demagogue. While it'll be bad for most people, opportunists can really profit from such a regime.

5- This quote is just there to remind you that LFI have it very easy, they point at "authoritarian" Macron, while they burn mannequins of him, threaten to behead him like Louis XVI, put his head on footballs, etc. They can do all that borderline stuff with no consequences. They just support these massive hate campaigns. Which is maybe ok? Because it's free-speech? I don't know, it sounds like hate speech to me. But in any case they have it soooooo easy, compared to any country with actual authoritarian leaders. It's easy being InSoUmIs in a free country. They are just highly privileged people, pretending to be oppressed and revolting against an imaginary "dictatorship". Can't you see that? It's so obvious to me.

Let me add a 6th point. The way Mélenchon blames Ukraine, apologizes Putin, his completely ridiculous stance just before the war started, saying that Russia would never invade and that it was all a big plot from US/NATO as always... He was soooooo wrong on that one, it's just embarrassing. He's wrong on so many things, but he just angrily moves forward, finding new enemies to denounce, new polemics to surf on, never acknowledging his spectacularly failed predictions. I simply can't understand for the life of me how can educated and honest people fall for such an obvious fraud.

1- Macron is known for his inflammatory and regular "petites phrases" (but often said more calmly than Melenchon), like "people who are success, and people who are nothing"... Some of his minister (eg. Darmanin) too, with some fake news sometimes.

And there are discourses and there are actions... Even journalists of le Figaro (right, with far right journalists and guests) had to publicly protest several times against Macron and his police because of stuff linked to democracy.

2. Your initial post where mentioning defining democracy around the term of revolution. This is not the case. Note that most violent revolution were to bring more democracy (even if does not end well all the times) and he seems to use the word in a very broad sense, including winning election. I did say this point is in a way scary, but gave you detailed explanation why in this context it is not that scary at all. You did not answered to any of those points.

3. I you don't read their detailed stuff, how do you know it is "a "nice" and empty ideology" ?

4. Why you call him a demagogue (even without reading any detailed stuff) ? and on what base you you say it will be bad for most people ?

More importantly as we were talking about democracy, how do you see Melenchon managing to reduce democracy, while his political plateform is more democracy, his party and people voting for him want more democracy, while his allies he need does not want less democracy, while there are important safeguard in France, while counter powers does not want less democracy, while army, police, companies and press does not like him and would oppose any move toward more autoritarism ???

5 - Your answer is off-topic... Still answering it :

Protesters did a lot of things, not LFI (except for ONE elected representative saying something one time)...

The discourse of LFI is the recent protest the not centered around the lack of democracy but about retirement, and more broadly about work and money.

No LFI leader compared the French situation with Russia ! But indeed some pointed that democracy moved back a bit... And indeed even journalist from Figaro had to mobilize several times against Macron for stuff link to democracy... And I am sometimes afraid to go protest (and I do respect the law) having been attacked several times by the police... And the recent twist to prevent the parliament to vote a law is lawful but is seen as going against "democracy" by a majority of French people.

6 - Here again a new off topic subject... You are grossly caricaturing his position, but what is the link with democracy in France ??? (note that only USA predicted that Russia will attack)

7- If you are around Lille, let's have a drink if you want :-)

1- could you give me an example from one of his "petites phrases" that would compare to "I AM THE REPUBLIC!!"? I think the words are important, but the telling of it also. Melenchon not only say ridiculous things, but he tends to scream those with visceral hatred. Let's be honest, it just can't come close to any "petites phrases" from Macron.

2- Hmmm. More often than not, "revolutions" have put merciless dictators into power instead of actually liberating anyone. A revolution in a free country usually is bad news. A country where you can freely parade with drawings of the beheaded president is not a country that needs a revolution to me.

3- There are way too many red flags, I won't waste my time reading their stuff. I know I'll just roll my eyes at each one of their "y'a-qu'à-faut-qu'on" claims. Sorry but you don't need to taste a cake when it smells like shit 10 meters away.

Do you read Zemour's books? No, you don't need to, if you have any critical thinking and heard him about 3 times, you know he's a fraud, a liar, a populist surfing on racism, hatred, fear, and national pride. And probably backed by the Kremlin.

4- I call him a demagogue because, again, he just makes random promises, like double the minimal salary / universal salary / prevent old people from voting (what???), without knowing how it would actually work, and he doesn't care anyway, he just targets some left-leaning audience, say whatever he thinks they would like to hear, and blame everything on Macron. He appeals to the lowest instincts. Envy, pride, hatred. What he says is worthless, he's not playing the game, he bullshits his way through everything. And when confronted, he doesn't have arguments, he just counter-attacks, it's a smoke-screen, because he's a fraud. Macron might be somewhat pretentious/pedant, but when confronted he's not afraid of staying on topic, he has a point, and consistent argument. You might disagree with him, I do on several topics, but he usually knows what he's talking about and don't need to use diversions/accusations/obstruction like Melenchon or MLP.

And then, if elected, maybe he would fail at turning France into the "Bolivarian dream", but why would you support him in the first place??

5- I'm sorry but the discourse of LFI recently was not particularly centered around one topic, it was centered around getting outraged with anything, given it comes from Macron, and Hijacking any "fait divers" to blame it on him. Some guy got almost hit by a car because he wasn't paying attention? Of course he wasn't paying attention because he was so upset with all the things Macron has done to The French People, damned Macron! He did so much harm, we need to put him in jail! Sounds ridiculous? It is, but I've heard such comments from LFI supporters. Those were completely brainwashed :(

Now, you say that people noticed democracy moved back a bit, so we need to attack the "extreme centrists" (I've heard this as well) and push to elect an angry dictatorship-loving guy? Are you serious??

Also, not sure what the recent "twist" was, but I'm sorry, it's meaningless to me. Again, either it's lawful, either it's not. I find this constant questioning of our constitution and rules very concerning. It's not attacked because of the rules themselves, it's attacked when it allows the current government to... govern. It's not fair. Did you notice that the constitution and rules are not attacked when it allows the opposition to do obstruction with dozens of motions de censures, with thousands of sloppy change-requests to proposed laws, etc. I think it's sad that the current opposition act like they aren't interested in honest debates. Yet, you don't hear Macron attack the rules.

6- Why is it off topic?? I thought the topic was "why is mélenchon in the same list as zemour and MLP". All of them were admiring the "stance" of Putin against NATO "aggression", bashing the US for "disinformation" about an imminent invasion. Sure, other actors mispredicted, even zelensky, but then, there's being wrong, and there's being wrong about something you were loudly using to prove your whole ideology and world view is THE correct one and everyone else are dumb and evil supporters of some western conspiracy which raison d'être is to destroy our Kremlin friends and enslave the world into CaPiTaLiSm. Of course I'm caricaturing, but I don't think I'm caricaturing that much. I can't find the tweet anymore, but it was the usual outraged, bold, harshest possible tone. Maybe for once he could have shown a little bit of humility when proven spectacularly wrong? Of course not, when proven wrong, he just doubles down. It's who he is, that's what he does.

Now if the topic is just democracy, then, I think his support of invaders and totalitarian war criminals is still completely on topic.

7- Sure, I'm sure this debate would be much more constructive in person :) I still appreciate the way you deescalated the conversation. I admit I loose my temper way too fast, and that's bad. I would be a terrible politician. Or... would I? ;-)

We have a different sensibility when it comes to words ; for example I personally find Macron's "petites phrases" more problematic than Melenchon's ones, and I find both as good (but with different style) debaters, able to use facts, arguments and figures.

We both agree that word and discourse are important. But I think going deeper than what you heard on mainstream media is important to have a clearer picture. I think that concrete situation (eg. who are in their parties, who are their allies, what is the power dynamics...) is important. And I think that what people do is often more important than what people says. My argumentation was mostly based on this ; and I felt that your answers were mostly based on some "words" you heard on some medias, and often your "feeling" about it.

We both hate and fight against Zemmour. But while I did not read entire books of him, I am reading media not aligned with my conviction for years, I spent many hours reading and listening Zemmour, Zemmour supporters, and people putting work to describe Zemmour situation. I talked with far right people. I am not hating them and find them dangerous just because this smell shit from a distance, I have argument. I know they are not some crazy incoherent dudes. I know them enough to be able to easily be the devil advocate if I wanted.

When it come to LFI or Melanchon, you are just saying things so distorted, showing that you really don't know them. They wanted to increase the minimal salary by 15% (what a revolution), you think they want to double the minimal salary... We can argue about their program, but some serious economists backed it. You really have a grotesque view of LFI and their program (note that like any party, there are many different people in LFI). And I personally don't really like them (but voted for them once). I don't have a grotesque view of Zemmour I think.

Our last source of disagreement is I guess Democracy. Your definition of democracy seems to be "what is lawful under the 5th French Republic" ; even when it is against the vast majority of what French people want, even when it is against what 100% of the elected union want, against the elected parliament, and even Le Figaro journalists (and most other journalist) have to mobilized themselves several times because of the threats against freedom of the press. Personally I want more democracy.

Do you really think he's being honest?

> You are attacking the wrong target. You are missing the big picture.

This is rich comming from someone putting Melenchon, basically an old school socialist (in the werstern Europe sense), in the same bag as Le Pen and Zemmour who are as far-right as it gets in Europe.

I agree that the situation is not very readable, but at least let's try to have a point of view consistent with the political history of the last few decades.

Yet there are lot of striking similarities. Lying, distorting reality to the absurd, openly supporting dictators, smoke-screen tactics, obstruction, inversion of reality, accusing others of things they are guilty. "Macron is a wanabee dictator!!".

In February 2022, Zemour, MLP and Mélenchon were all supporting Putin, his stance against the "evil US", saying that Putin would never invade Ukraine, that it was all US propaganda being spoon-fed to Europe. Then the invasion happened. Then they blamed the invasion on US, of course, and questioned the reports of war crimes, and justified Russia invasion by saying it was defending against "NATO aggression". But then, when Russia started to loose, they became "pacifists", saying NATO was prolonging the war by helping Ukraine...

If they were Russian assets, they wouldn't behave much differently, would they?

Same smell on both sides of the political spectrum. Who would have thought? Crazy, right? Like, imagine if far-right Hitler made a secret pact with the communist Soviet Union. Sounds familiar?

Le Pen is not "as far-right as it gets" and neither is Zemmour.

Melenchon is very left-wing, started as a Trostkist and is good friend Venezuela's Maduro, against the capitalist system, etc. So if you think Le Pen is extreme on one side then Melenchon has to be equally extreme on the other side.

Who is "as far-right as it gets" if not these two? (in any country you want, not necessarily France)

> Melenchon […] started as a Trostkist

So did more than half of the socialist party elit (elephant du PS), even freaking Cambadelis, are you suggesting he’s far left to ?

> against the capitalist system

Well yes, almost by definition of being on the left I would argue.

> So if you think Le Pen is extreme on one side then Melenchon has to be equally extreme on the other side.

No, this is a false equivalence. I mean the far-left as a political position does exist in France, but it is not represented by Melenchon who is still largely a socialist, although the actual socialist party has significantly shifted rightward in the 10's so there is a perception issue there.

It's been all but proven that Höcke is Landolf Ladig. Do you have any doubts about that person being a Nazi/fascist/right-extremist? Or do you know any compelling arguments against them being the same person?

Whats wrong with mentioning the fact "Bernd" is being used as his name? That's just a fact, isn't it?

And even if democracy ends up dying in France, the French have the history of overthrowing governments; they did it several times before, they can do it again if push comes to shove.

> It's not unlikely that democracy in France will not survive LePen.

Not sure what you meant but I would say that it is not likely that democracy in France will survive LePen.

She's just like her dad (or even worse) but much more savvy about the packaging.

During the Trump/Biden elections, I distinctly remember the "these elections probably are also being manipulated by the Russians right now" narrative being dropped the moment it became obvious that Biden's winning. Well, if the right candidate wins, the elections must have been fair.

The elections can be skewed with different kind of manipulation (social media, troll farms, electronic ballot hacks) and the popular candidate can still win.

It's fair to assume Putin would try to influence the elections in trump's favor as he would have been beneficial for him.

The Ukraine invasion would have been much easier if trump had been relelected, finished pulling out of nato and kept the more isolationist policy that was in effect during trump.

IMO trump was also doing a lot of damage to the US and it's position on the world stage which is also beneficial for Putin.

> The Ukraine invasion would have been much easier if trump had been relelected, finished pulling out of nato and kept the more isolationist policy that was in effect during trump.

It wouldn't have occured because NATO and the US wouldn't have been escalating it the way they did post and pre Trump.

I know this is not the right narrative (TM) but for anyone who remembers wars are not about good Vs evil but geopolitics, they'll realize the interests at play.

But hey, Iraq has WMDs and Vietnam... Er... Something.

Trump was also just openly very favorable to Putin, considering him a "friend" (which is insane) and trusting him over his own intelligence community.

> Any concentration of power is bad

Multiple failed, weak democracies that were subsequently replaced by dictatorships, several in France, would beg to differ.

It's a balance between centralization (stability) and decentralization (individualism).

Too much of either is corrosive.

> At best we'd've had a civil war.

The best part of that January was that a coup and/or civil war did not happen. The US got on with business. It could have went bad, but it did not do so.

> The best part ... was that a coup ... did not happen

Strong disagree: a half-assed, incompetently executed, failed bank robbery is still classed as and prosecuted as "bank robbery", there is no separate legal category for "attempted bank robbery".

It's the same with a failed coup. "the coup failed pathetically" is categorically different from "a coup did not happen".

A coup doesn't have to be successful to be a coup.

There was no coup attempt in the US. Trump was legitimately elected, and proved to be competent as a president, if somewhat weak due to opposition from the entrenched bureaucracy ("deep state"). He was certainly less of a warmonger than his immediate predecessors or successors, for which the world should be grateful. All the hysteria about him proved to be just that.

Well we can't say he didn't do anything strange. Firing huge portions of the state department to replace them with loyalists, attempting to dismantle the EPA (the only agency keeping track of aging nuclear submarines and, you know, that whole climate change thing), exiting the Iran nuclear deal for essentially nothing. Those are just from the top of my head but apart from the constant social faux-pas being signal boosted to the entire world, there was a very long chain of legitimately frightening actions that led to fears about him being relatively justified. Then there's the whole "big lie" and all the actions leading up to it. No one could rightly say he _wasn't_ attempting to seize continued power. I don't think it was like a full military coup, but there were definitely concerning actions

> the only agency keeping track of aging nuclear submarines

citation needed. Even the EPA's own page provides the actual agency "keeping track" of them:

https://www.epa.gov/radtown/nuclear-submarines-and-aircraft-...

(hint: it's the DOD and Navy, right at the top of "where to learn more")

Also, despite his stupid rhetoric, his diplomacy facing China was so miserably bad that they now own military bases all over the world and are set up to challenge us with more than just saber rattling.

Repeating "China is so bad" into a microphone a thousand times turns out isn't actual leadership.