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.
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.
They most certainly did give people something worth turning to. And then stopped talking about it way too soon. Most people simply didil’t know much if anything about Harri’s campaign promises. The Dems shifted from talking about worker friendly policies to go after the handful of sane GOPers. And lost.
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.
Too much truth in this statement to downvote it.
They most certainly did give people something worth turning to. And then stopped talking about it way too soon. Most people simply didil’t know much if anything about Harri’s campaign promises. The Dems shifted from talking about worker friendly policies to go after the handful of sane GOPers. And lost.