Power can corrupt, but Americans took corrupt and gave it the power. Again.
this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2025
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Yup. Trump wasn't corrupted by power. He was corrupt before the power.
Perhaps there was something corrupt about how the corrupt came to power?
Corruption is a flat circle.
There’s an obscure reference.
Power corrupts. Always. Every time. That's the basic idea behind democracy. You only get power for a limited time and you're bound by law and held accountable for breaking it. That's why besides free and fair elections the other pillars of democracy are rule of law and the separation of powers. Right now we can see in the US what happens when these principles are overturned.
Power corrupts. Always. Every time.
A baseless truism doesn't become more credible the more you repeat it.
Can you name any example of a person that has had unchecked power for an extended period of time that didn't end badly?
'Murican efficiency bitch!
Yeah man, Trump was clearly only corrupted when he got power...
Hate to break it to you, but that dude was always corrupt.
Power doesn’t really corrupt, it often reveals
The fundamental problem is that, while the people grant power to representatives at elections, there is no mechanism to revoke it. For example, the Senate can impeach the president mid-term, but the people cannot. Nor can they remove their senators or congressional representatives.
You say that like it would help us currently. We keep electing these people. We're clearly not collectively interested in removing them from power.
I don't know about that. There have been a lot of people saying "leopards ate my face". I think it would make a difference if the leopards could be removed after the first bite, instead of being able to keep eating for 5 years.
That's why there are (were?) three branches with the intention of balancing each other to some degree. The Founders knew what could happen. They just didn't foresee two of the branches ceding their power to the executive.
One of the three branches is nominated and confirmed by the other two branches, so you only really have to capture the senate and the presidency, as we have seen.
Taking the judiciary is a long term project though. It's resistant to short term swings associated with the rise of autocrats. The problem is the Republicans have been moving in this direction for decades.
The basic idea of the founders was good, but the US implementation of checks and balances is wildly outdated. There were several points where equivalent powers have proven disastrous in other countries over the last 3 centuries, and the US failed to act upon such data.
Yeah, the president isn't even supposed to have that much power. It's the party-first subservience in the other two branches, especially the legislative branch, which is exacerbating the issue. And the fact that the state-level governments are bowing down to Der Leader whuch appear to be amplifying his bullshit.
I think he was pretty clear about who he was for quite some time.
Yah we should get rid of the office of the president
Congress has to impeach this guy next year.
It's difficult to be hopeful about the DNC doing anything helpful considering the past 40+ years
Then you get Peter Thiel controlled puppet Vance. You think he'd back off the project 2025 playbook?
Doesn't matter if they impeach him or not, the Senate won't convict him.
If this were a dictatorship it would be a heck of a lot easier... as long as I'm the dictator. Hehehe.
I guess Dubya was kinda prophetic.