https://www.salon.com/2023/08/22/democracy-needs-its-gatekeepers-the-party-is-too-corrupt-to-care-about-the-country/
Experts explain why "Republicans appear to be in denial about the actual crisis in their party"
There's a blind side in America when it comes to acknowledging the primary role of racism and white supremacy that drives Trump's base and the right-wing ecosystem
The only “blind side” that I’ve observed since Trump entered politics is from journalists and media corporations that continuously bend over backwards to give him the benefit of the doubt, while doing literally the opposite for people on the other side of the spectrum like Sanders or AOC.
Same. Even those who vote for him and his like and then disingenuously claim ignorance of racism and bigotry will actually acknowledge it behind closed doors and say it's "strategic".
Which is the dumbest shit I've heard.
It's not dumb, it's their goal. They want genocide and to turn the U.S. into a white supremacist shithole.
I mean, that goal sounds pretty dumb to me. So that's where I'm coming from as it being the dumbest shit I've ever heard.
It's like these people never emotionally matured past toddlers.
I think it's telling that Chuck Todd called Sanders supporters "brownshirts" but didn't say anything close to that about the January 6 insurrectionists.
That's because Republicans played the long con.
They pretended to Champion fairness for so long, claimed that they were being unfairly discriminated against and that the media how do liberal bias. The result is that is now the media is too afraid to criticize the right for fearing that the liberal media stick will be used to hit them again.
It was never about ensuring an equal dialogue, it was about coming up with a standard where no matter what the right wing does, whatever the Democrats do has to be as good or as bad, regardless of what it is.
That's how you get "both sides are the same!" Nonsense
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When Donald Trump - the undisputed Republican frontrunner - is running to be president to avoid jail time and general responsibility for his crimes, you know this country is in trouble.
Politics in America is basically just like everything else. It’s just a brand people adhere to regardless of who works there. It’s the fast food of government.
If you like McDonalds better than Burger King, that’s where you’re gonna go. You don’t care who the manager of the McDonalds is. It doesn’t impact your decision.
That’s American politics now.
The headline implies that they're indifferent to the country's welfare, but in reality, they're actively hostile to it. They're fine wrecking the economy if it makes them richer and/or leads to a Biden defeat in 2024. They're fine destroying public education if it lets them be "anti-woke" or push more people towards charter schools (thus further giving a leg up to people from rich backgrounds). They're fine ignoring the climate catastrophe if it makes their rich donors and dumbass voters happy.
That sounds like indifference to me. They are “fine” with wrecking stuff, but that’s not their goal. Their goal is more power, more money, more… whatever. They are 100% indifferent to the countries welfare. At least that’s what it feels like to me. It’s definitely still bad, as indifference to other peoples suffering is a pretty crappy way to be.
Starting with a test on basic constitutional rights would be a start. It'll be nice if politicians actually know basic 5th grade material like this.
Then we can move on to other tests to weed out the old and decrepit. Memory test. Drivers test. If they can walk a mile.
And lastly a test asking them basic things. For example: How much does a sandwich cost? If they say $0.50 or $600 dollars, we know they're not fit.
To be honest, all those tests plus a net worth requirement under 1 million (including their home value) would be nice too.
We need people who actually know what it's like to live like everyone else.
I know I'm upper middle class, but $1 million sounds too low these days. Especially if you want someone highly educated. I just had a state university education and military experience and with the rate I'm saving for retirement I'm protected to be more than that $1 million. I'm not trying to brag, I'm trying to say that I hope the people running the country would be better educated and more qualified than me.
Just an example number. That's still really high compared to the median net worth of the US being $141,000. And the 90th percentile household wealth was 1.4 million in 2020.
Yes, but I do want the people running the country to be in the top 10 percentile at least as far as qualifications go. Which doesn't always translate to wealth, but has a pretty strong correlation.
1 million might be a tad on the low side. If you own a nice 3 bedroom 2 bath family home depending on location that could be $500k or even $700k all on its own. It doesn't take much to get to 1 million from there. Toss in a couple nice but not fancy cars and that's another $50k easily if not $100k, then the value of all your other possessions, and maybe a decent retirement account and you're basically there.
2 million on the other hand, and that's well into "rich" territory (but sadly barely even moves the needle of the ultra wealthy like the Koch brothers or Jeff Bezos).
How much a sandwich costs depends entirely on where you're buying the sandwich, though.
Ask someone from Rochester New York and someone from New York City how much a sandwich costs, and you're going to get wildly different answers, and that's the same state
Can we break up the federalist society? And what about removing the assholes who dismiss the peoples votes in the electoral college?
Like I'm not American but is one party really more corrupt there? Like wanting to kill minorities is not corruption, that's just normal evil shit. Don't both parties basically pilfer the economy, do massive amounts of insider trading and sell the US to corpos on a daily basis? That's at least the impression I have gotten. Like one party is absolutely more comically evil though.
One party does it far more than the other, but largely yes. The democratic party does have a progressive wing that wants to fix these things, but they don't have the power to do so yet. The Republicans don't.
I don't see the democrats trying to end democracy, dumbass, Trump and DeSantis both want to be dictators very badly.
You’re right that they don’t want to end democracy. A case can be made, however, that they just want the power and control to do what they want to do as well which is usually just enough small potatoes to keep voters happy while still lining the pockets of THEIR rich friends.
The times they’ve had control of the senate and house with a democratic president has amounted to nothing big or great for codifying some human rights (roe v wade) or even passing some major reforms for the country.
I’m guessing the OP has all that mind when they made their comment and they aren’t exactly wrong. However, I don’t know what the right answer is because humans are so corruptable, but the democrats are the lesser of two evils currently.
they just want the power and control to do what they want to do
This is literally the point of a representative democracy.
Please don’t cherry pick a tiny statement in an entire explanation of thinking and present it as a “gotcha”.
Look, I voted democrat, but anyone arguing that they are also not corrupt is a moron. They are waaaaaay LESS corrupt, but they’re still corrupt and they haven’t made big moves that they could when they have had the power.
To be fair, they haven't really had much actual power recently, we never really have enough dems in the house and senate to actually get things pushed through without bipartisan support which know won't come for anything that benefits the people. While there are definitely corrupt people in the democrats, as a whole their inaction ties more to stalled efforts which needed bipartisan support vs. not trying to push for changes. When you know you won't get enough traction to get something done do you waste resources there or try and find something that's workable.
While there are definitely corrupt people in the democrats, as a whole their inaction ties more to stalled efforts which needed bipartisan support vs. not trying to push for changes
And yet they still manage to force their shit through
Exactly, they're the party of "we keep corporate donors' profits flowing by doing nothing helpful to people"
It's sad that we're in an era where any accountability at all is considered hostility to party. Even nuanced, well thought out takes get shit on. It's as if everybody wants to be subjected to worse and worse times. We all need to realise that the flaws of the corporate Democrat world are holding us back, and no that is not to suggest the crimes of corporate Democrats are comparable to those of the virtual entirety of current Republican leaders who are actively trying to dismantle the system itself, but status quo politicians of any party have got to get put in check or we're only going to continue to suffer as a whole.
You're missing the point. Allowing credence to criticizing the Democrats undermines their ability to take up Republican seats in Congress, which is what people need to avoid the fucking Trumptards taking over and killing everyone else.
I agree it's stupid and we need a third party, but this is what other people want. They're probably not wrong.
Fundamentally the problem is literally voting. Specifically first past the post voting. There is no viable mechanism to have more than two parties in a first past the post voting system and with only two parties you're forced into voting against someone rather than for someone. Both parties oppose proportional voting systems specifically because they know it would weaken them, although only the GOP has specifically banned ranked choice voting in state and county elections.
The very first step (but certainly not the last) in fixing our democracy must be to replace first past the post with some kind of proportional voting system. That is the only way we'll get more political parties that better reflect the actual desires and opinions of the American public which in turn will help curb corruption in the political parties.
No quite the opposite. By campaigning as "we aren't those guys", Democrats can get away with having no serious legislative agenda and just make sure their donors' applecarts stay upright. That's what they do. It's a huge problem. Notice how they never actually fix anything?
No quite the opposite. By campaigning as "we aren't those guys", Democrats can get away with having no serious legislative agenda and just make sure their donors' applecarts stay upright. That's what they do.
Now I know you're either full of shit or majorly misinformed.
An NPR summary of the successes of the Democratic party for the previous two years.
OK their legislative victories are all small victories, mostly state level. The Guardian article is vague descriptions anders many aren't really anything special. "established Juneteenth asking holiday". Bra-vo. And what good is an infrastructure bill that doesn't include hispeed rail? How does the Chips and Science Act make a working person's life easier?
The US faces serious crises. Democrats never legislated abortion rights. We still have shitty privatized health insurance tied to employment, we still have massive student debt crippling a generation, we still have unaffordable housing pretty much everywhere. Cannabis is still not actually legal at the federal level. The Democratic president shat on the railroad union. And of course, we are destroying the climate. Where are the Democrats on any major issues facing the country? These problems have been growing worse for two decades. Whenever someone runs on progressive platforms, the party funds their opponents. They actively worked against Senator Sanders' run for president.
They'll happily lose elections to keep donations rolling in
Correct, they aren't. They're not great, but they didn't try to overturn a free and fair election and then protect the people that orchestrated it.