Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
I feel like my brain is getting hijacked. Maybe that’s the point of articles like these.
Authoritarianism prep.
I couldnt care less for the why. If you voted Trump, a third party candidate or not at all you are responsible for the coming fascism you waste of cells
Understanding why something is broken is a crucial prerequisite for fixing it. If you don't care why it didn't work, then you don't care about making it work - you only care about being angry.
Maybe if the democrats had given 50% of the populace something they considered worth turning up to vote for they wouldn't have stayed at home.
Getting out of bed, going down the street, standing in line, spending 3 minutes casting a ballot; is that a lot to ask of people to safeguard democracy?
Let's be more specific. That's what you need to do in order to protect the oligarchy. The United States is not a democracy; it is an oligarchy. The bottom 90% of the population has zero impact on how they are governed. It has been this way for decades.
This always happens to oligarchies. It happened in Rome, and now it's happened here. The Roman Senate was intransigent, fighting for generations against the most minor of reforms to help the common man. In the end, demagogues came to power promising to help the people by fiat. Of course, most of the time these emperors served only themselves, but even the few crumbs they threw to the people were more than the old oligarchy gave them.
I mean, still having a country was something to vote for for me, but you do you dawg. You'll reap what you sow.
That's the thing though. Most Americans feel they don't really live in a democracy, and they're right. Statistically, the interests of the bottom 90% of the population have zero impact on Congress. Congress's actions only correlate with the opinions of the top 10%, and moreso the higher on the income ladder you go.
Trump is nothing new. People voted for Trump for the same reason people voted for Napoleon. A system, even a democratic one, is only useful if it produces useful results. We don't have a democracy, we have an oligarchy.
In a system as corrupt and intransigent as ours, the only way you can actually get anything done, for good or ill, is to be someone like Trump who runs roughshod over political norms.
This kind of thing is common in history. Democracies can get so corrupt, worn down, and intractable, that eventually the people just vote in someone who will rule by fiat. The wealthy cut off every avenue of democratic change, and eventually a demogogue comes to power promising to just produce change by force.
Anyone who has studied history could have predicted Trump. Authoritarianism is the inevitable consequence of corrupt nominal 'democracies' that only serve the wealthy.
I agree with everything said here and have largely said it myself. The people didn't fail America - America failed the people. Whether or not Harris won, I would have sought to leave the country. She just would have been a stop gap measure to help prolong the offramp. This country's leaders forgot long ago that they lead a citizenry, not an owner/slave population, and it absolutely is an oligarchy.
I just would never have voted for the guy who's going to lead the genocide and make everything harder for absolutely everybody but the rich as well as tank the planet. My "wanting to watch the world burn" would not have taken that direction for anything.
I sincerely hope that Democrats do care.
Like it or not, MAGA can currently take that attitude. They control the SC, both chambers of Congress, and the White House. If they decide to say, "Fsck it. We'll ignore the Demorcrats," they'll still have all the process in place to enact their agenda.
MAGA doesn't need to analyze what went wrong during the election. They got everything they wanted.
For at least the next 2 years, Democrats will be able to do nothing that Republicans don't approve of. The law says that they get to set the standards.
If Democrats want any chance of checking that power or reversing it at the next election, we are the ones who need to adapt.
There's an "ancient Chinese saying", "卧 薪 尝 胆". You don't do it because it's fun or because you obliged to, you do it so you can win next time.
Ah the Highly intellectual argument that liberals use to win over voters... or is it?
There it is. Liberals are so comfortable moving straight to fascism the moment they don’t get what they want.
Gee I wonder why your fascist centrism didn’t resonate with anyone.