Can one still claim that the USA is a liberal democracy? Where do you draw the line?
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The rich were behind the mutiny in the first place, so, always has been
I’ll take merchants over nobles, but that doesn’t mean they both don’t deserve a guillotine.
But the nobles were the good guys, don’t you see? It was all in the name, “noble”. How could bad guys possibly be so noble?
I mean, no country truely had 10/10 democracy.
The US literally started out from people in chains, but eventually free the enslaved people (with the prison exemption), then black men could vote, then women.
Segregation was legal, then it it was outlawed.
Civil Right Act was passed
The level of racism began to deminish, not completely gone, but deminishing
I would say the US was at 1/10 democracy at the beginning, it was at 5/10 before trump, then it was at 4/10 right after Jan-6, now its at 4.25/10 (because some judicial appointments were made by biden as a counterbalance to republican judges).
Is it an oligarchy? Not really. I would say it’s a democracy in which rich people have an advantage in money and influence. So I guess you could call it a semi-oligarchy. Because in a real oligarchy, the media would’ve been censored, and you wouldn’t be seeing my comment, you wouldn’t be able to ask such question, there’d be no free(ish) internet access. There’s be no somewhat protected union activity. There’s be no somewhat protected protests. There are often violations to those rights, but back then, it was way worse.
We never really had a true 10/10 democracy, but as time goes on, it tends to trend toward becoming more democratic. (We’ll see what happens with Project 2025. Could be just another period of recession as it has happened many times throughout US history, or it could be Weimar 1933, only time will tell)
I’m here hoping to any god that is watching that Project 2025 becomes something like a dog catching the car situation. The Republicans are the dogs and now they are arguing amongst themselves what to do with the car.
I’m planning as if Project 2025 goes forward. If civil war is in my lifetime, the shots will start with the alt-right.
There is a quote that’s been ringing through my head ever since the CEO murder: “Those who make peaceful reform impossible make violent revolution inevitable.”
The Republicans have made any meaningful reform impossible through half-assed negotiations, bad faith arguments, and “fEeLiNgS pOlItIcS” over the last 50 years.
Democrats like AOC and politicians like Bernie are the acute minority. The DNC has moved more toward the right and given workers the middle finger.
Almost every regulatory body has been captured. The overturn of the Chevron doctrine made the rest completely powerless. We now have a fucking lunatic whispering into Trump’s ear to remove accident reporting requirements for his shitty cars. We will have an anti-vaxer running the CDC, a supplement pushing hack running Medicare, and a man who overpaid for Twitter running the fucking “Department of Government Efficacy.”
This is the tip of the iceberg. They aren’t even in office yet and they are already stirring shit.
Agree. Though the felt level of democracy and freedom seems pretty low. A lot of people feel disadvantaged. People are getting ripped off for example with healthcare payments by the (rich) establishment. I hear a lot of complaints here for example you absolutely need a VPN because all internet service providers spy on you. There seems always to be a choice, but a fake one. In the end, it’s all the same and you can’t really choosse anything but the label that gets slapped on. Same for the politicians. You have like 2 candidates to vote for. Probably neither of those does you any good. And they’re both part of the oligarchy and they put in quite some effort to not offer you any third option.
I’m no fool, they never convinced me of that lie.
50 is divided, not united…
How does one unite that which is already whole?
Tbh I think the most recent election and its implications makes the facts abundantly clear.
Well in 2015 Jimmy Carter said that the United States is "just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president. And the same thing applies to governors and U.S. senators and congress members. "
That same year The Economist’s Democracy Index downgraded the United States to a “flawed democracy” and it has continued to trend downwards since then.
If you’re looking for something more recent, Bernie Sanders is saying the same thing: “We are moving rapidly into an oligarchic form of society. Never before in American history have so few billionaires, so few people, have so much wealth and so much power”.
So between the massive (and growing) income inequality in the country, and rulings like Citizen’s United it’s hard not to believe it’s not at least on the trajectory towards an oligarchy. Now throw in the blatantly corrupt picks of the Trump administration, where cabinet positions are favors to rich friends, or being given to billionaires with a direct interest in killing the government agency they are running - not to mention all the things he’s routinely done / will do to enrich himself / friends with tax payer dollars and it certainly seems like an oligarchy to me.
And just on a personal vibes level, living here, it feels like legislation to help normal people or solve normal people’s problems is almost non-existent. And when it does happen, it also conveniently throws a ton of money at the rich at the same time (see recent tax cuts, pandemic relief funds, etc.). Even something like the Affordable Care Act, which did a ton of net good things for this country, enriched a whole lot of private healthcare companies along the way rather than creating an actual public option with negotiated prices to keep government costs down.
Pretty sure it crossed that line decades ago.
I’d say around the beginning of the 1900s is when we truly lost the plot. While we, the workers, were given a few breadcrumbs over the years to appease us, the Owner class was strip mining the wealth at every level imaginable, there’s a reason people like Rockefeller and Carnegie were richer than heaven at this time in history.
Late 19th century. There was some pushback, some anti-trust laws with teeth, and then decades of bloody union battles to secure rights workers and their elected officials have thrown away for 50 years.
The concentration of wealth and influence of 10-16 people trumps that of hundreds of millions and is as bad or worse than it was during the robber baron era.
Political representatives are bought and paid for which means the poor have no voice against the wealthy.
We have a justice system that is incapable of prosecuting the wealthy and powerful, when it isn’t being stocked by ideologues.
Meritocracy is dead; Birth has much greater correlation to wealth and power.
Media is fully captured by the wealthy; they own the vast majority of media consumed: TV, film, news, social junk.
Nice country you got here.
Remember when unions thought they were so Irreplaceable and important. That they would withhold Support for a second term from a Democrat, they didn’t think did enough for them. One of the biggest miscalculations and blunders of the post World War II era. Because first they came for the unions and labor power.
Turned? Have you ever heard of the Rockefeller and Morgan families?
Koch brothers…
I think it’s worse. I think we have noble houses fighting for the throne again. The Bush family, the Clinton family, they wanted Michelle Obama… In what sane democracy does the family member or wife of the last elected leader make sense as being the best option? Forget oligarchy, we have a straight up monarchy brewing with a nice democratic paint job.
Blood descendants are a foundation of monarchy though
The Bush family, the Clinton family, they wanted Michelle Obama
That’s how an oligarchy works though. A few powerful people, usually dynastic families, decide how the country should be run. You’re giving an example of oligarchs picking an oligarch. How is that evidence of monarchy rather than oligarchy?
Speaking of the nice paint job, it’s a good job you guys made that Eagle thing official. That makes it nice and clear that you’re not at risk of transitioning from democracy to dictatorship.
the US is run by billionaires and corporations.
you can live in peace as long as you don’t inconvenience them too much, and keep paying them
Stop dancing to their tune and you quickly discover how much freedom you really got
The only solution is to quit being boomer lol
The US has been an oligarchy for some time. Act accordingly.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/princeton-experts-say-us-no-longer-democracy
I would say corporatocracy. Ever since Citizens United, corporations have been making more and more policy and political decisions, placing in power who they believe will advance their agendas of unlimited and never ending profit.
Corporation are fiction of law.
Owners are a fee very wealthy individuals who abuse their fiction and the state against the pedon class.
It is a class war and always has been.
in war, both sides are aware they’re fighting. they’re both willing to fight. they’re both armed.
Well then we got a generational genocide of the indigenous working populations
The owners would rather bring in immigrants than create a country where people feel comfortable having families
Looks like you are a few years behind events.
200?
I say this in nearly complete seriousness:
Always has been
🌎🧑🚀🔫🧑🚀
Literally founded by slave owners
Only landowning or capitalist white men could vote and participate in politics…
It has been an oligarchy for a long time. This has been studied and proven.
There was a study from Princeton showing that no major policy has aligned with public opinion since the civil rights era.
There is no measurable way that our government has reflected the will of the majority in over 50 years.
Someone also did the other side where they tied policy- and law-making to benefiting the ultra rich. I do not recall source so I can’t provide that, but I did read the paper at one time a few years ago. It was legit.
Link
Thank you!
proven
Please explain. I don’t disagree with the conclusion, but this supporting statement doesn’t ring true to me.
By demonstrating the facts which make the system meet the definition. Look it up there’s plenty of articles citing studies. Someone else linked a major one here.
“Look it up” is never a good argument. With that said, I understand what you mean now; Thank you.
“Look it up” is not an argument, it’s a suggested course of action. I explained my point and then suggested you look it up in order to see it more elaborated and supported.
I wasn’t aware there was an argument taking place; certainly not one involving me.
Sorry, I just assumed that you were being hostile for some reason.
Nope, just informative to the extent I could be.
A while ago
