Honestly I don’t know what’s going on in the USA. You’re so proud of your “democracy and freedom” yet one of your 2 political parties is able to effectively dismantle the entire thing in less than a decade. You’re now one election away from being a christofascist state.
…and yet you’re all just going to work tomorrow. You’re all doing pretty much nothing except “make sure you vote in 2024.” So I guess every 4 years you’re going to be one election away from a literal Nazi takeover?
I don’t know. Riot or something. I have no idea how you’re all coping so hard.
The GOP has been working in this direction for forty years. If you think this just started with Trump you have not been paying attention.
I’d add a couple more decades on that, GOP’s degradation roots in 1950s during Eisenhower/Nixon and was later cemented by Nixon/Spiro. The Southern Strategy and “Silent Majority” with increasingly crypto racism were all Nixon hallmarks. Reagan built on them in the 80s and things have only got more extreme with modern right wing media in the 90s of course, but it all roots back to those early post-WWII years when so many things changed.
The influence of Newt Gingrich on American politics can’t be understated. He may not have started the dirty tricks and aimless obstructivism, but he codified the tactics and brought them mainstream in the nineties.
Ooof this makes the democratics seem like they are in on it or just really horrible at policy making to stop it
They are absolutely terrible at policy, especially with the moderate and right wing pleasing neoliberals in power. They’re useless.
Unfortunately the other choice is unbridled fascism.
so they have to make do with bridled fascism then 😂
You mean the establishment Democratic Party that, after Carter got elected, modified its primary rules to weaken the infuence of the public? That Democratic party?
We have a few left-wing Democrats, and the rest of the party reminds them they’re the red-haired stepchildren of the party every chance they get. Pelosi started forcing Occasio-Cortez to play ball on the regular, that is vote against her left-wing values to keep her positions, to get her used to the idea of selling out.
The party is corporate owned, largely by IP interests like Disney and Sony, but by capitalists in whole who are just as invested in the system of bonded servitude as the Republicans. For most matters, they’re still going to back the blue against the unions, the immigrants and the minorities. But they’ll wear a rainbow pin on their lapel while they do.
We vote for them because thats how FPTP elections work: one-person-one-vote means we vote against the popular monster by voting for the other popular guy. And no we can’t get a public-serving government out of it.
Forty years? Brother, you think this shit just magically started in 1983?!
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It’s interesting to me that both sides constantly cry about a lack of progress from their own side due to a 40 year build up of the other side slowly taking ground. I don’t have a clever overview on what’s actually going on, I just see two opposing teams both saying the same thing about the other and giving the same time frame for their claims against their opponents.
Republicans are 100% worse than Democrats. Dems are after money, republicans are after controlling the populace.
That would be because for the people in power, the parties are just a giant red herring to distract the American people from what is really going on: massive accumulation of wealth.
And at this point, enough wealth is accumulated to make the position of the powerful nearly unassailable. It doesn’t matter who wins politically, the powerful will still make their money.
To bring a slightly different perspective here: we’re not coping.
Our suicide rate has increased 60% since 2011 among youth and young adults. Rates of mental illness have doubled in young people. About 1 in 5 young people in this country will experience depression.
Our rates of overdose deaths have doubled since 2011. Over 100,000 people died from drug use in this country in 2021.
One in five of our kids go hungry. One in five Americans live with mental illness.
When you look at these data they are absolutely alarming and the opposite of most other countries, whose rates are falling. We are not coping, people are just dying these “deaths of despair.”
Don’t forget how lonely people are now. There’s an initial ‘weird guy’ thing one has to get over when talking with someone unexpectedly here in the US.
“Hey, I like the style of that jacket, can I ask where you got it?” People are morose about how alone they feel, but struggle to escape the “rugged individualism” programming of this country, to where they default to feeling safer by shrinking back for a second, before realizing they can, and do, have space to honestly interact with someone else who doesn’t actually want something from them. Well, other than pleasant acknowledgement of our short existence at the same place and time.
For sure, the deaths are simply the final outcome of a vast amount of suffering that cannot accurately be measured.
The corrosion of community, friendship, and third spaces are all well documented sociological phenomena that our country has yet to sufficiently address. Part of this is due to the decline in religious worship, which, while not a bad thing per se, does reduce a historically large source of socialization for our country. Part of this is due to the urbanization of our country over the last 30-50 years, and the hollowing out of many small towns. And of course part of it is due to the increased toxicity of our political systems, workplaces, and economic realities that limit our participation in society.
I guess all of that to say - none of this is an individual issue, it’s all systemic and part of the same sociological story. Feeling like a weird person for interacting with a stranger isn’t an isolated incident. It’s more a testament to how much has changed about our social world in the last 30-50 years.
They’re dying quietly, but they aren’t going unnoticed. That’s the best any of us can do…
…But I don’t think the rest of the world is doing a whole lot better.
Exactly.
And also, thanks a lot for bringing it up, it’s not a touchy subject or anything.
I can’t tell if you’re joking, but apologies if this should have had a TW.
No no, i’m totally joking, you’re good.
That was really just my initial response to the sentiment of “Hey Americans, did you realize you guys are all messed up?”, like “yeah, ya think? This has been a major stressor for all of us for the last 15 years. We are in fact quite aware, but hey thanks for pointing it out anyway”.
Haha for real! At least we have some self awareness left.
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Well, you need a prescription for those, so people do take lots of tylenol (aka acetaminophen, aka paracetamol) or ibuprofen. The problem is, it’s too easy to get prescription for opioids, and they get prescribed for relatively little things (but not for just e.g. a headache).
That said, I feel things are changing, people and authorities are openly admitting we have a opioid crisis, and there’s more awareness of the risks, which makes me think (hope) that doctors will be a bit more concerned before prescribing them. That said, I never got prescribed one, and probably won’t use them if I did.
Policy on prescribing opiates had gotten a lot tighter in the last 7ish years. It’s unlikely to get prescribed those drugs for small pains. People got addicted before this tightening, weren’t allowed to wean off them, and now turn to street drugs instead of pharmaceuticals. Also they cutoff people with chronic pain. OD deaths actually have steadily increased despite an enormous drop in prescriptions and it’s mostly fentanyl. Fentanyl is also much cheaper than pharmaceutical opiates.
Yes. This is the result of a privatized health system where the only outcome that matters is profit. Doctors write enough opioid prescriptions each year for 46% of Americans to receive one. (Source: https://drugabusestatistics.org/opioid-epidemic/)
It’s absolute madness, but I do think the prescribing is getting better slowly. Unfortunately, the massive jumps in ODs seem very related to fentanyl taking over an illicit drug market that used to be primarily heroin and rx opiates. When I worked on national drug use surveys ~8 years ago, fentanyl was not a part of the landscape at all. Things have changed so quickly.
…and yet you’re all just going to work tomorrow.
Now that’s where you’re wrong, buddy. Tomorrow’s Sunday.
And on Sunday the people in the US go to church like the good Christians they are. Afterwards they will abuse the staff at their local food dispenser, because they are pieces of shit that don’t even go to church.
Yes. Sunday is for working on your side hustle to try to actually get ahead instead of just treading water and trying to pay rent on time.
That’s not a side hustle, that’s a second job.
A lot of us work on Sunday still, I personally work 6-7 days a week and have since covid shutdowns let up
I wouldn’t listen to the everything is exaggerated and it is really just fine. We are boiling frogs.
Our economy hasn’t collapsed, so there isn’t going to be any dramatics like a movie or show
Rioting won’t do anything. The GOP voters and media outlets will frame at as anything that isn’t far right is bad.
In many ways, things are bad. We have large parts of the country completely dependent on cars. One of our chief judiciaries should be impeached. A former state governor actually faced criminal charges for far less than Clarence Thomas has been doing. The GOP is trying to dismantle public schools via privatization/vouchers, textbook manipulation, and gagging teachers. The GOP just might nominate Trump even though he is facing so many lawsuits his nickname should be The Defendant.
Right now, the Democrats far outnumber the GOP, buy the GOP has way better turn out. Saying vote constantly is to use our best defense, overwhelmingly defeats of these people in the elections. If all eligible voters voted, things would be quite different
Oh, and don’t forget: things are so gerrymandered that Democrats usually have to win something like 2/3 to 3/4 of the popular vote in a state to get over 50% in their state legislatures.
I am not exaggerating. This is a real thing.
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Registration is something the far right pushes for because it keeps “the wrong people” from voting. It usually coincides with them closing down voting centers and keeping people from registering in minority heavy areas.
Registering to vote takes less time than filling out the forms at a dental visit.
What does being white have to do with anything?
ID is just to identify you, it has nothing to do with voter eligibility.
Why do we need voter eligibility? I’m an American, so that means I am eligible to vote.
What’s to stop you from voting multiple times? Or voting as someone else? Or someone else voting as you? That last one actually happened to me during a presidential election in my home state.
I don’t think it was part of some deep state plot to steal my vote, I’m betting some distracted volunteer at the polling place accidentally crossed off the wrong name and handed someone else my ballot. But still, it seems to me that if we can give out free IDs (which is a thing in my state) then there’s no downside in checking them during voting in person.
I think the question was more about „Why do i have to register to be able to vote?“
Which is a good question. In germany we don‘t have to register to vote at any level. Once we‘re 18 and are registered citizens (the latter part is indeed a problem for immigrants due to bureaucracy), we get to vote.
We get a letter informing us where our local poll station is and then go there. A poll helper then crosses our names off a list once we‘re there and our ID is validated. Or we use the included ballot and send the letter back for mail-in voting. We can also have someone else vote for us if, say, the accessibility measures at the local poll station still don‘t suffice.
Germany isn‘t a perfect state but i personally think they make damn sure that you can vote. And it‘s really problematic that the ostensibly democratic US doesn‘t nearly put as much effort into enabling people to vote.
There are many who aren’t.
Yeah, but how do the people at the ballot box know you’re american? Many, many non-americans are also causasians whites … and many, many americans aren’t.
Oops, your white supremacy is showing!
lol did you say “white skinned” as if it meant “red blooded”? because I really hope you are just oblivious to how fucked up that sounds
Proud? I’m not proud. I spawned here.
You’re so proud of your “democracy and freedom”
Please don’t assume.
“Coping” is all we can do. We’re too dispersed and divided to make protests much of an option. We’ve got militarized and trigger-happy police, so rioting isn’t much of an option. A large percentage of the population is living paycheck to paycheck, so strikes aren’t much of an option.
We’re screwed, but hey, the world is dying, so we won’t have to worry about it for long.
Things are always more dramatized in the media than they actually are.
We are usually not given a good example of how bad things actually happen. We imagine the barbarians storming the gate, raping and pillaging. That does happen, but more often, things getting worse is more complicated, and it affects different people at different times.
For the one in five (!!) children facing hunger, our society has failed. For a poor person with diabetes and no medical insurance, our society has already failed. For an uber driver with no family support whose car broke down and missed rent, facing an eviction, society is about to break down for them. I’m a dude in my mid thirties that writes code, so for me, things are fine, but if I get hit by a bus tomorrow and lose the ability to use my hands, society will probably fail for me.
More and more people are experiencing that failure. Most of us are fine, but our being fine is becoming incredibly fucking precarious. More often than not, society collapsing looks like a daily constitution saving throw that becomes harder and harder to pass, and more and more of us who have a stroke of bad luck here or there fail.
Understanding society this way is important, and it’s why solidarity is the foundation of leftist politics. I march for people without healthcare because I care about them, and also, because there but for the grace of god go I. Bakunin put this beautifully almost 200 years ago:
I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation.
I’m a dude in my mid thirties that writes code, so for me, things are fine, but if I get hit by a bus tomorrow and lose the ability to use my hands, society will probably fail for me.
Just in case that happens, don’t hesitate a second, don’t feed your flawed system a single dime, but buy tickets to a decent country with your nose and get affordable healthcare in one of the hundred+ countries you can visit visa-free. Returning is optional.
Signed: a dude in his mid-thirties that writes code, has lost the ability to use his hands for months twice so far and genuinely worries about holders of one of the most travel-suited passports seemingly being brainwashed into thinking they’re chained to freedomland or something.
Have you actually done what you’re suggesting? Because my understanding is that it is incredibly difficult to immigrate with a disability, even if you have useful skills. Profoundly more so if your disability has made you unable to work.
Without going into much details: yes, but it seems like you’re speaking of a permanent disability, while I had temporary disability in mind when I was writing that. A permanent one would require changing careers and a chunk of a lifestyle so large that emigration is peanuts in comparison.
Ha, thank you. Fortunately for me, I’m a dual citizen, with family happy to have me anytime. I suspect that day will come, though I really , really love the life and community I’ve built where I am and will be devastated to leave it.
I wish you many years of good health, friend!
You mean to tell me the media preys on fear?!
No way!
One political party is publicly admitting they’re over the whole democracy thing and the former president is a Russian money-laundering asset who launched a coup and walked away without consequence.
Our political situation is one of the few things substantially more dramatic than the media portrayal.
Things are always more dramatized in the media than they actually are.
Are you trying to say Trumpeltier did not send his clone warriors to that riot there?
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plan would perform a quick takeover of the entire U.S. federal government
Because that worked so well last time, didn’t it?
This reads more like “jesus is coming next year!” nonsense that has been repeated every few years. The insane people eat it up, nothing happens, and ‘oh no we meant next year’ rinse and repeat.
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Possible, sure. With these clowns, not a chance in hell. Now you show me a credible threat - not this nonsense - and I’ll get out of my chair and start shoving my cane up people’s asses with glee.
But this ain’t it chief.
“it isn’t going to happen here.”
The line is “it can’t happen here”
The difference being the complacency you speak of - we don’t assume it can’t happen.
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If all you consume is news and social media – which have incentives to show the most extreme views, events, and content – you’re going to have a distorted picture of the world as a 100% awful, dangerous place.
But most of the time, in most parts of the world, most people are just living their lives. I live in the Portland, OR area and you would have thought by the news coverage of the 2020 George Floyd riots that the city was burning to the ground; in reality, the disruptions were limited to a few square blocks downtown. The majority of the city went on like usual.
There’s a lot more nuance to things about the US, too, than those outside realize.
People do fight back, every day. Our courts are prosecuting Trump. The House Speaker loony you mention in the thread came about only after a long, drawn out debate; the Republican Party is incredibly divided and ineffectual right now. Roe vs. Wade fell, but many blue states strengthened protections. Mass shootings get a lot of press, but they affect a vanishingly small part of the population.
Obviously there are problems and not everything is fine. And we have to be vigilant. But this sentiment among people – especially certain Europeans I’ve noticed – that the US is just a pure dumpster fire is a wild exaggeration by people addicted to screen time.
If all you consume is news and social media – which have incentives to show the most extreme views, events, and content – you’re going to have a distorted picture of the world as a 100% awful, dangerous place.
Especially with social media sites that have algorithms. Did you view a thread slightly longer because it was on a scary subject and people were arguing about it? You’ll see more of that. Did you get angry at another post and decide to reply to correct them (possibly using ALL CAPS)? You’ll get more of those.
Repeat again and again until the only posts in your feed are the ones that raise your blood pressure and make you want to scream.
I’m pretty sure, most of this sentiment would have been true for someone living in, say, Magdeburg, Germany in 1928.
I’m not saying that the US is inevitably turning into literally Hitler, but changes, revolutions can be very fast if certain tipping points are reached. Trump is prosecuted, yes, but are you sure that will stop him? There’s a good chance, he’ll walk away without any verdict that hinders his election. The supreme court is already very pro theocracy and a large part of the (voting) population is at least willing to risk someone like hard right republicans to take over.
You guys are already in a situation where something as basic as the democratic process is flawed (electoral college, gerrymandering, voting rights,…). Add to that the polarisation of the political debate, inability of “the government” to function due to mutual blockades, etc., etc. and you’re quickly at a point where a democracy can fall.
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Standard chirpy murica retort. Land of the free to be vile.
In what sense is OP being vile?
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Just because the truth hurts don’t make it “vile”
You genuinely don’t know what you’re talking about, anymore than those Americans you like to make fun of for not knowing the exact locations of places literal oceans away.
Spitting facts.
Oh no Russian propagandists or suckers for it are upset that reality isn’t a communist Lemmy thread and our government is mostly working exactly as intended!
Yeah, fuck that stacked Republican supreme court but we will make way with that as well until some suicidal fuck decides to take them out with em lol.
And what country are you from? I would love to hear it. It’s gonna be hilarious
I’m guessing not even on the same continent.
We’re coping by voting. And if our voting fails, it’s not like anything else would succeed.
What do you want us to do, summon the Assassin’s Creed?
General strike?
Too many people are paycheck to paycheck. They’re too afraid to commit to industry strikes, let alone a (illegal, cuz of fucking course it is) general strike.
This is also the reason we’ll never see real universal healthcare.
Three days of a general strike would suffice.
If that were true, enough people would have to actually all do it at once. That in itself gives people enough fear to keep going to work.
OP wants to agitate you into saying something illegal
Revolt and overthrow your shitty government.
If we just overthrow our existing government, why would something better magically show up in its place?
Because by that time you’ll have grown the fuck up and taken ownership of your country and your actions enough to implement one.
We can look at history and see that it often doesn’t go this way when you tear down your government. It’s naive to just act like this is a straightforward and obvious way to go
It doesn’t have to be. You can make the choice to be better whenever you want. But we both know you won’t.
You are hopelessly naive.
You are partly responsible for why things are so terrible if that’s the conclusion you choose to draw.
The general public has enough of a mental split if the right direction of the country that short of splitting it somehow a sucessful revolt will lead to more fighting. Also country is super big. I’m content fighting my little battles withing my family/friends and using our voting system as much as I’d prefer significant changes.
It doesn’t have to be what?
It won’t be like in the movies. Brutal fighting house to house.
And then there’s the whole did you see what we did to Iraq in a month?
Thanks to Bush II army can operate in the US during “times of crisis”.
So vote.
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Bruh really thinks not causing complete chaos and instability is being selfish.
It sounds good until you actually start to think it through. Get rid of the “bad guys”? Fuck yeah! Then who decides who replaces them? What do we do to keep more of the same bad guys from stepping in to fill the power vacuum?
Wow, a pile of insults hiding a weak counterargument, color me surprised.
You know a population organized enough to overthrow the U.S. government will simply overthrow evil corporations too, right? You did consider that, did you?
After all, if you think you’re so smart then the American people certainly are smart enough to do so.
You heard it here ladies, gents, and others. A pile of insults is defined as more than two, and a three paragraph counterargument with multiple points is considered weak and undermined by one “haha, bet you didn’t think of that!” sentence. Sorry bruv. Gotta hard disagree with your stance. I agree things are f***** i ti distopia, but a single organized revolution is both insufficient and monumentally difficult to achieve.
And your response is to quibble about what “a pile of insults” means so you don’t have to address what I or anyone else is asking you at all.
We’re gonna try this again. Did you consider the fact that an armed, organized second American revolution can topple evil corporations as well as it could the U.S. government, if one existed? Yes or no
LOL. A counter argument so “weak”, you weren’t able to actually address any of it!
I wonder how many of these obvious shill accounts are on Lemmy.
Perhaps, before suggesting people engage in violence or protest, you should do some research as to why they don’t, why it hasn’t occurred to them; what is the resistance?
It’s not an easy rabbit hole to follow, and I had to do the dive, myself. Heck, I was so certain the world by now would have a constitution wiki in which every national charter was translated. It would feature a workshop area where legal scholars could hone clauses like including ranked choice voting into US federal elections. Because so many improvements are no-brainers.
Eventually I realized such a beast didn’t exist, and legal scholars aren’t into that. It raises the question: why?
So, for now I’m going to say, just like yesterday, you should get on your knees and pray we don’t get fooled again.
suggesting people engage in violence or protest
The way you put it… are these two similar to you?
Violence is something where you absolutely need to think twice. In all cases.
Protest is something very, very neccessary in your current situation.
You’re not wrong there, but if you are at the “wrong” protest or the wrong skin color, you can easily find yourself in jail, the hospital, or dead from protesting peacefully.
you can easily find yourself in jail, the hospital, or dead from protesting peacefully.
Sad. But then it creates more protests against that (hopefully).
Be glad, because you have the chance to become a martyr, and you don’t even need to die along the way.
Yea of course, we the citizenry can just easily overthrow the most powerful nation on the planet with our shotguns, semi-autos, and hunting rifles.
Then once we win the rebels are sure to establish a perfect utopia, that’s what every other rebellion in history has done for sure
Did you watch the news in 2020? There were protests and riots across the country. Hell dude, at one point there was a giant group of people marching from police station to police station, burning them to the ground. People aren’t doing that right now because Biden is pretty chill and doesn’t do much to protest against. Mobs need specific catalysts to spur them to action, not vague feelings of discontent.
This. I’d agree with the sentiment that Americans don’t protest enough. Most Europeans and Self-Hating Americans seem to think protests don’t happen here at all.
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Lots of places did enact major changes though. Police departments were defunded, drugs were decriminalized, and social programs were created. Seattle had a straight-up anarchy zone for a while. That sounds like it would be an incredibly dangerous place, but in reality it was just a bunch of young adults hanging out outside and way more graffiti than is cool.
Yes, it works better to slowly turn the heat up.
GenX-er here. I grew up thinking that any day nuclear weapons would fly and obliterate us all. Coping with “one political party wants to turn the country into a Christian Fascist state” is easy by comparison.
With the nukes, I had no say in the matter. The USSR could have lobbed nukes at us at any moment and the best I would have been able to hope for would have been a quick death. (Dying slowly from radiation poisoning and starvation would be much worse.)
With the Republicans, I can vote and encourage others to vote. I can work against it. Yes, I’m only one person. I’m not going to topple their efforts myself, but thanks to the Internet, I have plenty of people helping me to thwart their plans.
I’m also hoping Gen-Z can swoop in with record voting changes soon. That seem to be more organized and active than people my age that won’t go check a damn box once every four years.
How can us older folks explain concern trolling and that among the old out of touch frontman both sides always choose, you can set aside single issues, and just pick the one that will do the least harm?
I hear a lot of black and white ultimatums and statements boiling down to if you don’t do impossible I won’t vote tantrums. Sounds exactly like the trash before, people won’t vote for a woman. Gore came out slightly critical of Iraqi war and the media ate him alive as a antiwar idiot peace nut. He tried to transition to climate change but got called a boring and stiff despite being passionate about environmental activism.
There’s always an ultimatum. Being slightly critical of a blank check for war after 9-11 was an express ticket to no where.
The Democrats, even if they have some fresh ideas behind closed doors, are always running a terrible campaigns with mixed messages : “more of the same” mantra to big business; latest identity politics hot button issues for the people.
But past all the terrible policy that can’t be quickly changed and flat messages one party constantly comes in with a plan to exploit, fucks shit up, dig a deeper hole, and hold onto power. While the other at least seems like they’re trying to act in good faith and approach some issues.
I feel like there’s always a bunch of trolls identitying a single issue and saying, well because there’s some war you can’t have reproductive rights cuz I won’t vote .
Or because some fetuses aren’t fit to live but I like cute babies you have to have even worse and more war, cuz I hate reproductive rights.
For fucks sake nothing is black and white. It’s complex and voting for those that listens to science and lean into harm reduction is a real platform.
I think I understand your question. If I already knew how to convince people to adopt a nuanced opinion instead of ultamatums, I wouldn’t have to push my friends every four years.
Few points to bring up here:
Many Americans are very aware of the false democracy and lack of freedom in the states and have made and have been trying to make further legislative and cultural changes for generations.
The Republicans have dismantled themselves, certainly, but they have not dismantled the institution of voting at all (the conservatives lost the previous election because of conscious voting).
We’re not one election away from a christofascist state, any more than any other country is, anyway. The fascism was literally voted out last election, the bungling, violent rioters are condemned across the nation and are undergoing legal punishments and widespread vilification.
The christo part of your accusation is completely absurd: in 50 years, Christians have fallen from over 90% of the population to just over 60%, at a steadily increasing rate. In addition to that, people who identify as non-religious over the last 50 years has shot up from 5% to 30%.
Religious parties are losing numbers every year, at a steadily increasing rate.
As for work, Americans are conditioned by their education and their culture to work no matter what, we have an insane work ethic that does not benefit the workers; that is actually why the UAW strikes and all the recent strikes are so important, because workers have to remember that their civil rights are more important than the profits of their exploitative capitalist masters.
America is not one election away from a Nazi takeover, which happened while Germany was at some of its lowest points with regard to economy and social awareness, with no local or foreign opposition to or awareness of the Nazi party. The USA has an incredible economy right now, there are civil rights and workers rights movements happening right now that are changing the entire country, and since the Nazi party up to this year, there are new legislative protections against hate groups and a worldwide and American awareness of and opposition to Nazis and other hate groups rising to power.
Americans are rioting, but more importantly they are voting out fascists and raising awareness, and the majority of them want a better country and a better world for everyone.
All of these are excellent points and I’ll also note (to the OP) that the US has one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the world. In some states, like California, we all get Vote by Mail ballots and so basically everyone can easily vote if they want to. In other states, they’ve gone as far as making sure counties with primarily minority populations only get one polling station, open for like 10 hours during the actual election day (Tuesday), and of course election day isn’t a work holiday. Think of how that skews the actual voter demographics. That’s why we’re recently* so close to fascist takeovers, the people who actually genuinely need help from the government are effectively unable to participate in the election process so that they can vote for a government that will help them, because they’re busy working, or they don’t have a car to get to the singular polling location, or there’s no way they can get childcare while they stand in line for hours.
Edit: changed always to recently – my brain has been skewed by the recency of the Reagan era onwards, but yeah it hasn’t always been this way, whoops
in less than a decade
We get it, you have a very poor reductive view of American history and politics. This shit has been cooking for a very very very long time. Trump isn’t the disease he is a symptom, a very dangerous mutation but not the origin.
