The USA is a bourgeois democracy. It is only a democracy for the rich.
That’s called Plutocracy.
I think the next Lemmy Shitpost on this should be something on US Republicrazy due to the direction this election went.
I hope our future dictators are handsome or beautiful and that they come with nice body parts, so when we have to suck their dicks, we can at least enjoy it.
My ass for Super EARTH!
Get ruled.
Here’s my pound of gold 🥇 Mr Trump. Are you fucking me? How come I can’t feal anything yet? Oh well fine, it’s not a problem. …Anywhere you’d like Mr president, I’ll clean it off. Oh yes, the migrants are all bad. All of them. Oh yes, the enemy within! Terrible things. More licking? Ofcourse Mr president!
There’s a lot to be hopeful for! We got a superstar candidate for the dems for years to come, we can at least be proud of that
They had Bernie and killed his chances every time.
Kamala?
I would think Walz.
It’s not too much different to the chinese democracy. There isn’t even a direct democracy
It’s a democracy controlled by people who don’t care about regular working people. It was designed by rich white dudes and slaveowners 250 years ago to protect and increase their wealth.
Your institutions have failed you. Americans need to demand better and throw off the chains that the wealthy have put on them.
They willingly put the chains on every morning before heading to work.
Mortgage to pay, health care insurance costs, kids tuition, …
Slaves to the systems of life.
You mean an oligarchy then
That’s an accurate term too
If we had a more representative electoral system, more of the non voters would be engaged by the political process. More voters always has lead to more democratic votes.
Why is the democratic party saying no to these easy extra votes when they fail to replace First Past the Post voting in states they control between elections?
“We won it last time! Why change now? Besides, proportion representation only leads to more parties and that’d mean we’d have to… cooperate.”
Heaven forbid we would have to compromise instead of ramming legislation only we like through to pass.
Yeah, a two party system with two right wings only.
That wouldn’t work.
Anybody got that American political plane meme handy?
This one?
You just leaked the design of the next-generation of Boeing 737s
One wing is cheaper than two!
MAX profits!
You know it was funny I had to fly on a Max recently (not like we get a choice when buying the ticket) and the plane had all the MAX stuff removed, it was funny to sit in an attempt at a coverup.
🫡
the folly of democracy:
When you figure out that the United States was established by wealthy white males who owned slaves, had a revolution due to “no taxation without representation” but then purposefully ignored to repent the 99% until major reforms over the years, it makes sense.
The first set presidential elections were only voted by a handful of Americans. Not the women. Not the slaves. Not the natives who were here first. The landowning white men.
When we claimed England is a tyranny but abolished slavery and gave universal aufferage before we did, I think we lost that argument. America was built by out of touch white men, and it has always been ran by out of touch white men.
It’s amazing the stories that Americans tell themselves about the American Revolution. They pretend that the “founding fathers” were heroic idealists standing up for honorable values against an evil despotic regime. The truth is much more complicated.
A major goal of the 7 Years War was about controlling the colonies in the Americas. Had the French won those wars, the modern people of North America would probably speak French. Look at how many US places still have French names, and especially are named after the French king: Louisiana, Louisville, St. Louis, Mobile, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Detroit, Lafayette, Arkansas, Illinois, Calumet, Decatur, Boise, Montpelier, etc. But, the French lost the war, so the English took over all that territory. Fighting that war was incredibly expensive, but it was worth it for the English because they now controlled a whole new continent with all its resources. To pay for that war, they levied taxes. The English colonists in the US, who were largely the beneficiaries of that part of the war, decided they didn’t want to pay those taxes, so they rebelled. They got the benefit of a continent won for them by English armies, but without having to pay the bill for that fight. Now, again, it’s complicated. The English armies were integrated with the colonial armies. George Washington was initially an officer in the British army (and was part of starting the French and Indian wars, which became the 7-years-war). The US colonists were part of the force that fought against the French and their native allies.
Anyhow, it was complicated. But, the end result was that after a war that took place both in Europe and in the Americas, the British crown had a huge debt. I have no idea what proportion of that debt was due to the part of the war fought in Europe vs. the part of the war fought in the Americas, but overall there was a big debt and the English crown tried to tax whoever they could to pay for it.
Was the English king a tyrant? Sure. Did the Americans have fair representation in the English parliament? Probably not. But, their main reason for rebelling was the same one that is nearly always the cause of rebellions: the rebels are in an area that’s wealthy for some reason, and they don’t want to have to share that wealth with the rest of the country / empire. In fact, it was suspected that the colonists chose not to send representatives to the colonial assembly partially because they knew that if they did that it would undermine their “without representation” argument, and the real issue was that they simply didn’t want to pay taxes.
As for the English system being tyrannical, the reality is that it has been a very slow, gradual change from an absolute monarchy to a ceremonial one. The English crown is significantly less wealthy than Elon Musk, and arguably has a lot less influence on British politics than Musk does on American politics.
By the letter of the laws, the British system is still more classist and controlled by money than the American system. But, is that true if you look at the actual real way that power is used? It doesn’t seem like it to me.
I particularly enjoy the bit about how after the French helped us win our revolution and took some revolution home in a doggy bag. We reneged on our debt claiming “Our deal was with the king.”
Not to mention that the civil war was lost through the presidential election of 1876 even though it was won in battle before that. That election was so corrupt that the Union conceded a lot to get their president, including removing Federal forces from the South on the promise that the South would protect Federal rights of minorities, blacks, etc. (among other things) The North pulled out and the south reneged without consequence (the KKK was the strong arm then) until the Civil Rights act in the 60s. That’s only roughly 60 years ago. Most of the institutional segregation from before then is still firmly in place.
Rebecca Latimer Felton, the first woman elected to the US House, “spoke vigorously in favor of lynching African Americans, under the pretense of protecting the sexual purity of European-American women.”
I’m not above being petty, so lemme just say she looks exactly as I expected.
Bang on. She really does.
Like a fucking old troll filled with nothing except for hate?
His last name is Trump! Actually I don’t know what they used to call him before but this is his last one hopefully.
This implies that Trump is a Lich. That is a terrifying thought.
Everyone has made their bed, now everyone has to sleep on it.
Yup, stop whinning that your girl didn’t win the race and just make the best of it.
Yall got housing? Fancy.
Democrats were voting to avoid a repeat. Republicans were voting to avoid jail time. The latter was a bigger motivator to get off the couch.
What??? We literally saw democracy play out. You can’t even use the excuse that he lost the popular vote, he won every type of democratic way we have.
You know what wasn’t democracy? Installing candidates into primaries over democratically popular candidates. Hillary in 2016, Biden in 2020 and Kamala in 2024. In every single one of these primaries, they did everything they could to shut down anyone popular who showed any sign of having a backbone, even though they killed democracy as it happened.
What we saw was a backlash to a stifling of democracy. Democracy won last night.
*Candidate backed by the world’s richest billionaire wins*
.ml users: “Democracy Won!”
Do you think Dems aren’t backed by billionaires? Gates, Bezos, Soros, Oprah, the list continues. But what, the single billionaire throwing $$ at the trump campaign is the big evil baddie? Because he has a few more billions?
Trump has threatened to end democracy in the US. So yesterday may end up being the last time anyone in the US gets to vote.
I wouldn’t call that a win for democracy.
There is zero proof that he’ll be a dictator. My source is that he was president for 4 years and was not a dictator.
The only thing you’re basing your claim on is an offhand joke he made about fully shutting down the borders on the first day, then opening them back up with better safeguards. If you watch the whole clip, you’ll understand that.
No. You’re clearly highly uneducated on American politics or just trolling.
Great comeback.
If you’re referencing Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020, he wasn’t “democratically popular” in either race. That simply is not supported by polling or election results. He was well behind Clinton by all metrics. Then in 2020, he was briefly “winning” because several similar candidates were splitting the center-left lane. The moment the center-left lane narrowed, Sanders’ lead evaporated.
It’s SOP for candidates to more or less clear the field for an incumbent president. This is partially because of a perceived effect from a strong primary challenger weakening an incumbent. So Democrats were just doing what both parties have been doing for the last half century.
The change from Biden was in response to clear reactions from the US electorate. The electorate saw Biden’s debate performance and was not impressed. There wasn’t time to run a process, so Kamala was the obvious choice given a non-ideal situation. But the electorate got what it wanted in terms of an option that wasn’t elderly.
I think you’re forgetting the part where Clinton paid off the DNC’s debts and became it’s only financial lifeline, for which DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz abdicated control of party to Clinton’s team long before she secured the nomination.. Or that the AP controversially called the primary for Hillary just before California voted, giving voters the impression the primary was over before voting finished. Or that the DNC argued in court that they had no obligation give Bernie a fair, democratic primary. Or that Representatives Ford and Smith admitted the party did coalesced around Biden in 2020 to block Bernie. Or that polls had Bernie beating Trump by a wider margin than Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020.
Did you forgot the part where it came down to just bernie vs biden in 2020 and people overwhelmingly voted for biden?
I like bernie too, but he wasn’t gonna get the pick
All these sources of intentional corruption against someone running to improve the lives of all Americans and not just a select few, and you just go “Hmm, but he was losing according to the media that lied to us, so he lost fair and square.”
I see how many people didnt vote for him. How is the media lying about that?
You could argue that media was against him, but the truth is that people in america just aren’t that progressive. I mean hell, look at how terrible the dem turnout was this year compared to last election.
- Refuses to cover his campaign ads
- Refuses to cover his victories
- Internally leaving him off of nationwide polls when data allow him to be counted (CNN infamous called Sanders “Other Candidate” instead of showing him, but counted Andrew Yang)
- Slander about him being sexist when he encouraged women to run for office and only started going in 2016 when he asked Warren to run and she declined.
- Mass media campaign about calling the Jewish senator antisemitic for not being “pro killing children”
So when the media is against you, people see it as a bad candidate, and don’t vote. Even when he was never a monster, but Trump got more air time saying “Mexicans bring rape”.
Democrats aren’t progressives. Maybe if they were, they wouldn’t lose all the time.
“If they just had my opinions (that are unpopular to the US population at large), they would win.”
Except it wasn’t just him and Bernie. It was also Warren, so the progressive vote was spit, while the centrist vote was coordinated around Biden. Nice try though!
Biden made more than bernie and warren combined in alot of states. If bernie was meant to be, more people would have voted for him, plain and simple.
You’re right, I forgot that Bloomberg was still in and running a campaign entirely designed to block Bernie. Nothing says, “Democracy,” like an oligarch entering an election and using his personal wealth to undermine another candidate, right?
Bloomberg was a joke. Can blame it on everything you like, bernie was still never getting presidency in 2020. People picked Biden over him.
I am not sure you remember but the media reaction to Bernie doing well initially was major outlets like CNN reacting with fear, loathing, and uncertainty. And it impacted rhe course of an election. You had anchors yelling about how Sanders will result in public executions in central park during the primary.
Bernie Sanders won 3 out of 5 primaries that occurred before the DNC called it for Biden in 2020 with Buttigeg picking up 1 other. In 2016 Sanders won 23 races and was at 43% of the popular vote despite extreme pushback by the DNC. He was democratically supported cause he had people voting for him. Democratically.
And sure but with some of the worst polling numbers Biden, did not need to or should have thought he had incumbent advantage. Mud had a better approval rating.
And the change was from that and a protest vote of 100,000 voters voting against Biden in a primary that had no other option that’s was being ignored until the rich donors realized the polling wasnt gonna get better after the debate proved he was not fit for office.
There was time but the argument was made that it would be difficult and all the donations already made could be immediately given to Harris as she was already on the ticket, thus letting the money flow (which the DNC outspent Trump 2:1)
They got what they wanted which was a younger centrist willing to do Biden-esque policy without question that they thought would be easy with identity politics and being “not Trump” which is viewed as the main issue and not what issues he represents as a fix for.
Mostly being a willingness to change from status quo.Which is exactly what hasn’t been allowed in races as shown before.
Bernie Sanders won 3 out of 5 primaries that occurred before the DNC called it for Biden in 2020 with Buttigeg picking up 1 other.
I’m not sure how to parse what you’re saying. As far as DNC rules are concerned, they “call” it once all primary races are held.
In 2016 Sanders won 23 races and was at 43% of the popular vote despite extreme pushback by the DNC. He was democratically supported cause he had people voting for him. Democratically.
The Democratic primary uses proportional representation, so candidates don’t win states, they win delegates. Hillary Clinton got 55% of the popular vote, Bernie Sanders got 43%. There are no two ways to slice it, Bernie lost that election by the rules of a democratic election by a sizeable margin. Meanwhile, Hillary was dealing with getting hacked and Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi. And you’re forgetting the often adoring coverage that was played to audiences on the left about Sanders.
The selling point for Kamala wasn’t anything in particular about her. She’s the VP and was the only obvious choice. There was no appetite for a contested convention, which was the alternative. It was always going to be an uphill battle, so in a sense she’s also a sacrificial lamb.
I’m not sure how to parse what you’re saying. As far as DNC rules are concerned, they “call” it once all primary races are held.
I believe it means that you weren’t paying attention during the 2020 primaries or the news around them then. The DNC Does not wait and did not. Claiming Biden the Presumptive nominee 38 days after the first delegate picked. Obama took 120 days. To give you an idea of how fast that was, faster than Trump’s nomination in 2020.
You are correct though. The primary eventually went the way it went. He lost it by the rules but there is a reason people don’t feel good about the rules presented and that needs to be dealt with.
I would also just want to finish with the simple, how is pointing out how popular his rallies were be a negative to his electability while being an usurper to someone in social and legal discourse?
So based on your 38 days, that would be March 12th (2020-02-03 + 38 days), no? And Biden was indeed declared the winner on a March 12th, but that was in 2024. It took until April 8, 2020 for Bernie to decide to drop out.
I think you are right. I am mixing up the 12th with 2024 however it was not until Bernie dropped out that everyone started calling Biden the winner.
By March media was still calling Biden the nominee and you can find articles claiming Biden as the nominee by March 17th just with a quick Google search. Washington Post called it by March 15th in an article I can’t read from a paywall.
After Biden won South Carolina (a single state) it was already being called as his win and by March 3rd most other candidates dropped and fell in line with Biden creating chaos in super Tuesday polling as voters were told their votes had been pointless.
I agree with you that if you look Biden didn’t actually get the delegates needed to be the Nominee until June and that Bernie Sanders didn’t drop until the 8th of April and his campaign was struggling at that point.
But that divide between what actually happened and how it’s recorded is part of my point.
A large amount of effort was made to push people into a specific option and while it “worked” it does not mean it didn’t come with a cost of voter engagement.
He wasn’t “democratically popular” because the Dems suppressed all support he had. All those news medias that have been hounding on trump being the worst thing since Hitler? Yeah, they used that same power to stifle anyone who had an iota of a chance to get votes
Wisconsin, US here. My county went 70% for Trump this time. That’s versus ~48% in 2016. The problem isn’t democracy. The problem is the people. Pissed as hell for all the wrong reasons at all the wrong people. Unable to see reality, expecting that the person in charge could make it a utopia with the flick of a switch. The average American is delusional and irreparably stupid.
We constantly joke that it’s Idiocracy, but the truth is…
It’s funny that you can now actually do a Pro/Con list about the Idiocracy universe over our own:
Pros:
- Lots of diversity
- Black president
- President listens to advisors
- Sex work legal
- Not crippled by religiosity
- Puts smart people in positions of power and trust
Cons:
- Everyone’s stupid
- No real due process
- Public executions
- Misogyny, homophobia, and ableism are rampant
Same:
- Police are knuckle-dragging morons who will murder you
- President has too much power
- Costco
At least we’ll always have Costco that really lifted my spirits 👍
Welcome to Costco, I love you.
This. Was crazy to see everyone turn on the DNC and Harris the moment it was over like we are just unable to come to terms with the fact that we’re surrounded by garbage and morons and there’s no way around it
The results aren’t showing that though. They are showing a large amount of Democrat voters just stayed on the couch. Trump didn’t get more votes than 2020, all that was needed was an energized democratic base.
Do you think they stayed on the couch cause kamala didn’t give them the metaphorical coffee they needed or did they stay on the couch because they knew even if they voted for her and she won she wouldn’t fix the issues this country faces? The corporate donors will not let any two party pawns address their control or runaway wealth. Voting isn’t going to solve our issues now with trump. America is stuck waiting for things to get bad enough that people rise up or doomed to collapse.
Does it really matter between those two? End of the day, Trump motivated his base and Harris didn’t.
Trump still got 72 million votes and counting this time. That’s with another four years of Trump scandals, revelations, criminal charges, insurrections, mental declines, and on-video insane statements.
The people who stayed home, or the politicians who failed to motivate them, sure they carry some blame. They could have helped. But they are not the base. The ones who followed Trump from being the outsider who is fun because he’s an asshole/racist like them, to the corrupt traitorous dictator-to-be who they’d like to watch hurt people. Blame them much more.
The steady level of Trump support unfortunately supports the fear that our culture is just garbage. We’re surrounded by it. There are plenty of proud assholes, sure. But so many people will legitimately be pleasant to everybody they meet and seem to function in society, but either believe horrible things or have a thick shell of indoctrination and ignorance around their brain.
The people that supported trump were always going to support him and be energized to vote. That’s a big part of why focusing on his lies was such a waste of time, it wasn’t going to change any minds. Winning elections is about motivating your base, undecided voters are a wash and opposing voters aren’t likely to massively shift.
Couch-bound voting was easily possible and effortless. They CHOSE to sit it out.
Sorry but staying on the couch makes you fall under the garbage and/or moron category imo
Maybe dont genocide next time. Genociders, their financiers, and those who enable them are garbage.
Okay so best case scenario now you have an incompetent, ineffectual rapist and felon now who doesn’t care about genocide in this country let alone another, and will let it drag on. Worst case you have an incompetent rapist and felon who will write a blank check to Netanyahu to finish the genocide quickly with whatever means necessary. His supporters and the people who sat back will share culpability in whichever happens. So we definitely agree on your last sentence
will write a blank check to Netanyahu to finish the genocide quickly with whatever means necessary.
This is literally happening as we speak now that the election is over. How many Gazans will be left for Trump to genocide? How many months early will Israel complete their ethnic cleansing due to Trump? Is there a rate that can occur faster than the billions of dollars we are currently surprising?
I voted for your stupid fucking genocide candidate so fuck off.
I mean I’m guessing tens of thousands? Probably several months early when aid to Gaza goes to zero? So yes, I think yes there is a faster rate. Thanks for doing your part though, sincerely. I’m actually a Canadian living in the US so I’m indeed making plans to fuck off.
Thank you for saying it. The voter is the fucking problem. Anyone with half a brain realizes this. Gaza, egg prices, and the candidate not having a dick was enough to the traitor rapist felon to get a trifecta. That’s not a campaign problem. Maybe Harris didn’t run a perfect campaign, but that’s clearly not the issue here
I’m not American. Maybe my opinion also comes from a place of not understanding how government works in the US. But in 2020, Biden won the Presidency and the Democrats had control of the House and the Senate. Yet, they had a harder time of reversing Trump’s policies than he had pushing them through. Let alone not even trying to enact progressive policies.
As an outside observer, maybe that’s why people have lost faith in the Democratic party.
Because you have to consider all the court appointments he made, including the supreme court that he stacked. If the Biden admin did any more, itd just get struck down. The court can basically nullify any law or executive order they want without repercussion. Im frankly shocked he got away with as much as he did
Orange asshole is definitely going to get more of those court appointments over the next 4 years. And they will all pretty much be there for the rest of our lives. Any sort of sense of democracy that the US had was probably dealt a death blow today.
Yeah uh, I really really hate to say it, but… democracy worked this time. The voice of the people is “Trump please”. Democracy just means you get what most people want, not what the best option is.
I’m pretty sure the majority of people mourning the loss of democracy aren’t saying it because they feel the democratic process was broken this election, rather they say it because Dump vowed to dismantle democracy and serve as a dictator.
Eh… I’m sure that’s the case for some people, but a lot of left and right wing people seem to think democracy=my ideas winning. Those people seem to think Trump winning is not reflective of the (very shitty) will of the people.
