this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2025
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[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago (4 children)

The US electoral system is broken

Which is why it's considered a flawed democracy, which I stated.

Republicans have spent the past 2 decades gerrymandering

Except Trump actually won the popular vote this time. Making this argument void regarding the presidential election 2024.

Republicans and Democrats are material allies

That far I agree, they have arranged it so they share power, except this time, Republicans may choose not to share it anymore.

The working class is not responsible for their own manipulation at the hands of the ruling class. It is not their fault that the system is broken.

Isn't it? Haven't they mostly agreed on this arrangement because for decades many mostly whites benefited from it too?

Capitalism is the problem

I partially agree, but there is no real alternative to capitalism, and definitely not anything proven, the problem is not capitalism but how it is managed. In a social democracy it can work pretty well.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 37 minutes ago

I partially agree, but there is no real alternative to capitalism, and definitely not anything proven, the problem is not capitalism but how it is managed. In a social democracy it can work pretty well.

Chiapas is doing just fine, without capitalism. For 35+ years now. Even in the face of Mexican and US opposition to them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 46 minutes ago (1 children)

We have been a flaws democracy the entire time of our existence.

Trump barely won the popular vote by 2 million and less than 50% of all votes. At best, 1/3 of Americans voted him in and unfortunately 1/3rd (beyond those who were disenfranchised) didn't bother even showing up. Leaving 1/3rd who did or could do anything about it.

We're pushing back. Unfortunately we have the law to work through and they're just breaking the laws. Time will tell if the guardrails have completely fallen off. It's not looking great but we have seen progress fighting back.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 36 minutes ago

Time will tell if the guardrails have completely fallen off.

They've already fallen off. In fact, they fell off right about 2008 or so.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Regarding the capitalism part

I'd say that what we see today is the logical conclusion of capitalism. In a way it's a broken system, it just takes time to collapse. But growing wealth inequality and consolidation of power are inherent problems in capitalism, and we were always going to see times like this. I mean, for further example, look at climate change and how it's damn near impossible to actually solve the problem

It's more that there is little political will for an alternative system, but don't get me wrong, if humanity wants to survive in the long run, there is no easy way out. I seriously do think that, either humanity makes a global economy that serves people, and not capital, or we will self-destruct due to systemic incentives of the profit incentive

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

I’d say that what we see today is the logical conclusion of capitalism

Capitalism is not a political system, what is happening now is what happens when governments fail to adhere to things that were figured out more than a hundred years ago, that Capitalism needs to be reigned in, exactly to avoid it from developing into monopolies and an oligarchy. USA has allowed that to happen, because of the (bitter) "sweet" profits, and with an already dysfunctional democracy, USA is very vulnerable to abuse of the power of extremely strong companies and even individuals now.

if humanity wants to survive in the long run, there is no easy way out.

I think there absolutely is, that is called social democracy, which has a pretty strong track record for protecting both citizens and the environment from powerful capitalists.
But it requires a well functioning democracy, and it probably can't exist in a vacuum either. But in EU things have been trending in that direction, and EU is an excellent environment for it. USA however has a long way to go. The mentality simply isn't there currently.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 34 minutes ago

Capitalism is not a political system,

Capitalism is an economic system, political system, and social system, all at once.

You cannot have capitalism, without the force of the state to back it. If the state doesn't exist, then people would be free to associate in other ways that they are forbidden from doing. Capitalism starts breaking people in school, when we start indoctrinating them with the religion of capitalist thinking.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

No, I live in the EU, the same capitalistic problems exist here, they're just slowed down a bit due to social democracy. But don't get me wrong, the fundamental issues are here just as much as anywhere else on the globe

Capitalism is not directly an ideology by itself, no, but it is a massive fundamental part of a given ideology. There's a reason most ideologies revolve around the economic system, because it's so pervasive in everything we do. From the things we do every day, to the way we interact with others, to the way we get access to resources and services we need and want, to where we live, to how we think

What you need to keep in mind, is that under capitalism there will always be a profit incentive to undermine the system for even further profit. This is what collapses civilizations, this is what makes society fall apart in the long run

Making a capitalistic economy work for the benefit of everyone, for the people, is like trying to swim upstream all the time, forever. It would be much much more internally consistent to just have a river you swim downstream with. In other words, an economy based on cooperation, not competition. A civilization based on competition is almost an oxymoron, civilization itself is fundamentally a cooperative environment. Why do we tack competition on top of that?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 minute ago

the fundamental issues are here just as much as anywhere else on the globe

That is simply not true, yes there are problems with right wing fractions. But it is in no way comparable to the dysfunctional democracy of USA, or the authoritarian regimes like Russia and Belarus.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

If you had read the rest of my first line, the American electoral system has always been broken. This isn't a new state of affairs. The working class of America has been in a perpetual state of manipulation into further and further right-wing politics since at least the presidency of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

He won this election with fewer votes than he lost in 2020. Ultimately, the popular vote is largely irrelevant as the number of votes overall is not what determines who won the election. He won in 2016 without the popular vote. Voter manipulation and strategic disenfranchisment won them that election and this one.

Correct, so the American public had a choice between conservatism and fascism. A state of affairs that outraged many people. The democrats and the Republicans share an interest in their corporate benefactors. They will unite to seek better outcomes for the ruling class at the expense of the working class. The democrats will and have consistently refused to adopt popular politics like those of Bernie Sanders and AOC. Those politics are in contrast to the desires of their benefactors.

The working class has been manipulated through a union of the education system and mass media to indoctrinate them into fascism and further anti worker politics. Even in traditionally democratic held states, there is a persistent refusal to educate children on anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist politics. There is a refusal to educate children on the failures of American democracy and an insistence on nationalist indoctrination. In red states, this is even worse. These problems have existed since at least the presidency of Richard Nixon and to differing extents even before then. American fascism is the system. It didn't start yesterday, and has been manipulating the American working class for a very long time.

Even more than that the entirety of the media and education systems unite to indoctrinate the working class into anti working class politics. It indoctrinates the people into believing civil unrest is wrong, that protest and demonstration is wrong, that all political violence is wrong. This is deliberate. It is a deliberate effort to protect the interests of the ruling capitalist class.

Socialism is an alternative to capitalism. You have been indoctrinated by the capitalist ruling class into believing that socialism has never functioned. It has and continues to do so today. Socialism and authoritarianism are not equivalent concepts. The failure of authoritarian socialist states were failures of authoritarianism, not of Socialism. Capitalists have taken advantage of those failures to manipulate billions of people, like yourself, into seeing Socialism as the problem. It isn't. Capitalism is and has been a global failure. A system that serves the self interests of billionaires is a failure. A system where workers do not own the fruits of their own labor is a failure. A system that tolerates landlords and private corporations is a failure.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

f you had read the rest of my first line, the American electoral system has always been broken.

How does anything I write indicate otherwise? It's not Trump that broke democracy (yet), he is merely exploiting the fact that it's broken.

so the American public had a choice between conservatism and fascism.

Conservatism that at least makes room for social democrats like Bernie AOC and Ilhan Omar, and over that they chose fascism.

I don't think there's much point in arguing further, seems to me you are making a lot of false equivalences, and I have no patience for arguing against that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 36 minutes ago

You called it a flawed democracy. I said that it's not flawed it is broken. It's not democratic. The people do not get what they want.

The democratic party "leaves room" for leftists like Bernie Sanders and AOC, in that they can hang around and talk sometimes. Only as long as they have no actual power and can't affect change in any way.

I wasn't aware we were arguing. You didn't respond to 95% of what I said. And that's fine, but you can just say that you can't or don't want to consider anything I've said. You don't have to say that I'm "making a lot of false equivalences"? I'm not really sure what you're referring to by that.