What will happen to me if Democracy goes away?

[MySideOfTown]

This was the question on Nicole's Deadline tonight.

It made me think about that in terms of myself. I'm 75. In pretty good health and may live 10 years or more. My only income is $1970/month SS and I have Medicare. Decent savings of $30.000, a paid for car, paid for mobile home with lot rent of 610/month. I live alone in Florida, have enough to pay for food, utilities etc. and have an excess of $800+ or so a month. I'm comfortable and could live this way indefinitely if things do not change much.

I'm probably lucky compared to a lot of people.

I always vote for democrats and particularly women and poc. Because they deserve more representation.

So what could happen if Democracy goes away to upset my apple cart?

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. GOP will reduce or eliminate SS and Medicare if they can. That might take a few years though.

Your right to vote will be gone or meaningless.

I understand what and why you are asking.

Oh, as cons take more power, be VERY careful about openly supporting anyone they hate. You know, anyone who is not a white/str8t/christian/male.

[Chainfire]

29. Make no mistake, they don't like the white, straight, Christian males either

except for the fact that the group has been manipulated to present them, through their numbers, some pretense of legitimacy. To the people who pull the strings the only things that are holy are money and the power it brings. MAGAs only serve as a ballast to keep the Republican ship safe in a storm.

[Meowmee]

2. They will trash and try to destroy

Medicare and ss, so you will be in trouble if that happens. They will also be reducing any type of programs that help people in need I am sure while they make themselves richer and richer, and while they are never held accountable for any of the many crimes they commit.

There will be a lot more if full fascism really takes hold and it’s going to be worse than anyone could imagine.

[Mr.Bill]

5. If they ever eliminated Medicare,

Most hospitals and health care institutions will go out of business.

[Meowmee]

6. They may not succeed in eliminating it...

They may not succeeding in eliminating it completely but they’re going to trash it to pieces I am sure of that… which means the healthcare system will be even worse than it is now.

[summer_in_TX]

22. While in the meantime the wealthy class use concierge care.

[Meowmee]

24. Yes exactly

Everyone who has money, lots of it, will be ok. Billionaires etc. create hospitals in their homes when possible.

[Runningdawg]

3. Native woman in OK - what will happen here will be closing reservations.

They will post bounties for us if found off tribal land.

[brooklynite]

4. Allow me to offer a perspective on what will happen to the average person.....

Nothing they care about.

I'm one of the very few people here who's lived in a democracy that became a dictatorship (Philippines, 1972).

At the front end, people will say they don't want to lose their Democratic rights. At the BACK end, they won't particularly care.

Life goes on. They go to work, go out to a restaurant, see a movie, watch TV, travel on vacation. The only difference from their previous life is that they either don't vote, or don't find their vote effective. But a lot of people, especially the undecided voters in the ideological middle, don't feel that their vote has been that influential in the past, so they don't feel that they're losing that much.

[Meowmee]

7. I suppose you mean by the average person

The average person who “has money” not those who depend on ss and medicare or other programs to survive.

[brooklynite]

9. No. i mean the average, disaffected voter.

If the Republicans eliminated medicare and social security, what do you imagine the average voter would do?

Approximately 50 million are eligible for medicare. I'm confident you wouldn't get a protest group of that size.

[Meowmee]

10. And how will they be ok

Without money from ss and healthcare. They will eventually be dead, not going to movies and restaurants.

[brooklynite]

11. I'm not discussing their economic situation; I'm discussing their political engagement.

[Meowmee]

12. Ah that's not what you said though

I think it needs to be made clear here what you mean. I am still waiting to hear how the average person who no longer has any money to survive or any healthcare or maybe they have a sliver of what they used to have and they survive somehow, how are they going to be going to movies and restaurants and living the good life not caring about what has happened.

[brooklynite]

14. Once again, we need to distinguish between MANY and MOST...

MANY people are in financial difficulty. MOST are not. Most (especially younger people) don't imagine that Social Security/Medicare will be there when they retire, so they're not riled up by its potential loss.

[Meowmee]

16. Still waiting for that specific explanation.

Such an odd view from a Democrat also imo. The people I have described make up a large portion of the population and many have younger relatives.

[brooklynite]

17. All I can tell you is what I saw in the Philippines and what 40+ years of political experience says

People DON'T rise up en masse when their Democratic rights are taken away (democracy polls much lower than cost of living), and life goes on. Restricting voting rights has been going on for decades; where have the significant protests been?

[Meowmee]

18. I will to remind you that the person that posted this question

I will remind you that the person that posted this question describes themselves as someone who is depending on Social Security and Medicare and they are not wealthy as far as we know. Assuming this is a serious question, and an actual person which there is no way of ascertaining with certainty in an online forum , it might be best to address his or her issues instead of suggesting that people with enough money or young people will be all right so nobody will care.

[brooklynite]

19. And I will remind you that my assessment is what MOST people will do.

I'm not discussing what SHOULD happen, I'm discussing what likely WILL happen.

[Meowmee]

20. Ok but what you are saying it comes off badly imo

Last edited Thu Oct 20, 2022, 01:16 AM - Edit history (2)

And it doesn’t answer their question, which is what will happen to me.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

8. This.

[leftstreet]

15. +1

People have lost enough faith in established institutions it's not surprising they find little correlation between politics and material conditions

[meadowlander]

21. It doesn't matter until it matters.

I lived in China for years. Like you say, on the surface people go about their daily lives and find a way to adapt to almost anything.

Except I had government censors reviewing and approving my work. And there were topics you could not talk about (the 3 Ts in particular - Taiwan, Tibet and Tiananmen). And one day a friend of mine showed me the pro-democracy slogans she carved in her shoulder with a razor when she was sent to a reeducation camp in her teens. I knew her three years before she trusted me enough to show them to me.

Most dictatorships have the good sense not to screw with peoples' sense of normalcy. As long as they have enough to eat, and a job to occupy their time and a chance to go shopping for the things they need, most people will accept a lot without protest. But as long as they don't upset that sense of normalcy, a lot of other things can change under the surface. And for a non-average person, things can change a lot.

I left the US permanently in 2003 and am glad I did. As a trans person I can't imagine ever trying to live there again.

[MySideOfTown]

13. Economic devastation

Thinking of how much devastation there would be if purchasing power of 70 million people were to have their income reduced and what effect it would have on spending. Same for Medicare. Also VA as Scott proposed. Talk about a recession!

[FelineOverlord]

23. There will be an massive uprising

I will NEVER accept fascism.

NEVER.

[brooklynite]

27. Friend of mine just visited from Hungary. No riots in the streets.

You may want to protest; most people will not.

[FelineOverlord]

30. We're not Hungary

They were behind the Iron Curtain for decades.

Americans never shut up and refuse to bow down.


Confederate and Columbus statues toppled by US protesters

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53005243

George Floyd Protests: A Timeline

https://www.nytimes.com/article/george-floyd-protests-timeline.html

[Deuxcents]

25. I'm also 75 n live in Florida which scares me

I am pretty much like you only I don’t own my condo yet..still have a mortgage but my car is paid for. I live on a fixed income n hav savings but rely heavily on SS. I think about what the republicans want to do n how that will change my life and not for the better. I think of my mortality as I’ve tried to make sure I’m not a burden on my family but if the do what they say they’re gonna do, I probably will be. I know this much.. I’m independent n able bodied n if it comes to the nightmare they want.. I’m going down swinging. I didn’t work all my life to lay down n give up.

[MySideOfTown]

31. You know how it is with us

I have guns.

[DFW]

26. I have been amazed at what people put up with

I lived in the waning years of fascist Franco’s Spain, and I have been to the socialist versions of Poland, Hungary and Germany (DDR).

As outsiders, we marvel that the locals put up with the institutionalized repression, but if you’re born into it, many or most people tend to accept the status quo, circumvent the worst when they can, and try to be inconspicuous when they can’t. In Germany’s “realexistierender Sozialismus,” or “real existing socialism,” it was illegal for four or more people to sit together at a table at a café or restaurant, because they might plan something the government didn’t like. They had a huge secret police apparatus to enforce this, the Staatssicherheitsdienst, or “State Security Service.” Loving their abbreviations as always, they were known as the Stasi for short. Under the fascist regime, they were the Secret State Police, or “Geheime Staatspolizei,” or “Gestapo,” for short. Incredible as it may seem to us, the East Germans accepted the rule, and made sure never to congregate with more than four to a table in public.

Street crime wasn’t a huge problem there, as few people had much worth stealing, but if someone denounced you for even thinking you said anything disparaging toward the state, you could easily fall into their ready-made for dissidents: you could lose your job, become unhirable (word spreads fast when the State is the only employer), and then be accused of “parasitism,” the crime of living off of the state without contributing (pretty difficult to find a job when a country’s only employer has you blacklisted).

For a species capable of turning the good into bad, we’ve proved to be extremely adaptable at accepting the results of our bad decisions, whether it’s voting for Trump, or not voting and thus signaling your acceptance of the consequences of your abstention.

[Chainfire]

28. I would suggest, to the OP that Republican politicians don't give a damn what happens to you

and would prefer you to be dead, and no longer a financial burden. You are, most likely, retired and not creating additional wealth for the already wealthy, so you have no value to them. The Republican Party exists to insure that the top 1/2 of one percent of the wealthiest people maintain and expand their wealth and power; every other Republican policy is smokescreen. If they ever get to the point that they don't need the votes of the MAGAs, in order to maintain some pretense of legitimacy, they will also throw their ignorant, faith-based followers to the curb. Our society is becoming one of two groups of people; the hammers and the nails.