"Donald Trump is the first president to start a war without even bothering to lie to the public, because he simply didn't care what the public thought."
"As Trump told The New York Times in January, his power as commander in chief was constrained by nothing but 'my own morality. My own mind. It's the only thing that can stop me.'"
"For Habermas, the essence of democracy was discourse, back-and-forth argument about ideas and values."
"He wrote about the 'public sphere' where citizens come together to hammer out judgments, and about 'communicative action,' which turns language into a force for cooperation."
Historically, Americans have been led into wars under false pretenses, such as the Spanish-American War and the Iraq War. Donald Trump represents a departure from this pattern by initiating a war with Iran without consulting the public or Congress. He expressed that his decision-making as commander in chief was solely guided by his own morality. The late philosopher Jürgen Habermas emphasized the importance of discourse in democracy, arguing that political power should stem from the communicative power of citizens, which was notably absent in this instance.
Read at The Atlantic
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