politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
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
view the rest of the comments
I get where you're coming from but wanting an option other than corporate politicians is very different from willingly electing your last president as a childish incompetent dictator.
It's a bit too reductive to turn the statement "American democracy has been dead a long time" to "we want more candidate options".
The real problem isn't some rhetorical or presentation problem, it's that we have hard data that public opinion has actually no influence on laws. Only people within the oligarchy (e.g those with massive amounts of capital) influence the law. That's not democracy, even if you present it as such by having people tick a box every 2/4 years.
To have a real democracy you need voting in ways that actually impacts people's day to day lives. By far the most influential version of this would be democracy in the workplace, but we don't have that, we have authoritarian dictatorships in the workplace. It's still legal to rent people with capital, it's legal to own forms of private, non-personal property (e.g factories), and as long as we have rules like these, organizations will be led by authoritarian capital, and not by grassroots democracy.
Voting for Trump is a statement by the many that that since democracy isn't working, we might as well drop the pretense and go full autocratic. We've seen the death of democracy several times because greed always reigns.
And that statement is stupid as fucking shit.
It may well be, but people are looking for authenticity and economic security. People don't want politicians backtracking and giving empty promises. There's a reason people from the Rust Belt support Trump and perceives him who "says it like it is."
The Roman Republic fell because the elites pretended they care for the people, and the people want someone who would do things for them and "says it like it is." Same thing happened leading to the rise of Hitler.
I'm oversimplifying the reasons for the decline of Roman Republic and rise of Hitler, but the common denominator to democratic decline is growing wealth inequality and oligarch corruption. Sure, even before Trump's election and Brexit, many analysts have warned of widening gap between the rich and the poor, and predicted the consequences if these aren't addressed.
Another reason Hitler rose to power was even though the Nazi party only maintained something like ~30% of the government, the other factions of the government couldn't come together and unite against a common enemy, so it was easier for Hitler to cull influence and support. The US doesn't have as many parties as they did back in the 1930's, but within the Democratic party the centrists, moderates, progressives, etc ALL need to fall* behind Biden, as well as most independent voters, otherwise it could very well be game over for democracy in the US.
The Germans thought the same when they elected Nazi party officials in the early 30s. The problem is voting for trump is not a protest; it’s ushering in a bona fide fascist dictatorship.
If you want to make a statement, vote for RFK or something, not someone openly calling for executions, genocide, and the end of democracy. That’s not a statement, that’s voting to ensure you never get to vote again.
Trump is fully dry humping the greed