The USA is a bourgeois democracy. It is only a democracy for the rich.
That’s called Plutocracy.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Why can’t Biden do his own supreme court appointments?
He could, but traditionally the court is suppoaed to have seven Justices. He respects that did not want to be seen as trying to stack it. Unfortunately Republicans have no intention of giving the slightest fuck, were already stacking the court, and will likely continue doing so. If you ask me, I think Biden shouldve stacked it
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.
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.
(in spirit since I am not American)
Part of that joke though is that they’re both exactly the same which is of course a false premise.
Well I was posting it more to the point of the I am sure wave of people saying “Well I voted for the Dems” is fast approaching.
Funny and true. I like it.
Clownocracy
FWIW most clowns are hard-working, skilled individuals who bring joy to people’s lives.
Are you a clown?
Today we’re all clowns.
I know you’re probably joking buttttt, I know a ton and can say it’s a mixed bag … Many clowns are like Santa’s and magicians…they’re not the most forward thinking and take themselves waaaay too seriously. Most new age and haunt clowns are cool peeps. It’s the old school “clowning art” gate keepers and the evangelical clowns that tend to be insufferable. Heavy mean girl vibes.
I was actually wondering because i dont know much about clowns, it’s interesting, iv heared only about some Gracy or Gacy clown but forgot what was the thing about him
Remember when the US-Government dropped fucking poison Gas von striking Miners?
Maybe this whole US-Idea was not that great to begin with.
Remember when they bombed a neighborhood in Philadelphia?
Remember when they burned children alive because their parents may or may not have modified some firearms.
Holy fuck.
You guys should have listened to Thomas Paine, the only founding father with a clue and a set of principles.
Topical.
Why, what did he say?
- political institutions should promotoe individual rights and social equality
- critqued organized religion
- the government should serve the people
- wrote the famous line “These are the times that try men’s souls” during civil war
- people have the inherit right to reform and/or dismantle oppresive goverments
- all individuals possess inalienable rights (human rights basically)
That’s what I gather from his wiki and some chatgpt queries. Never heard of him before (not an american) but honestly — I’m a big fan now.
Didn’t all the founding fathers and every president since then say all of the above?
We need to praise people more by what they do, than what they say I reckon
Sounds nice enough, but not really like an outsider position among the Founding Fathers. OP seemed to be saying that Paine differed substantially from the others in some way, which I would be interested to learn about (not American either, I only have cursory knowledge of the Founding Fathers).
Paine was far more radical than the rest of them, and wrote scathing critiques of them that caused him to become extremely unpopular before he died.
Kleptocracy
Now is time for the “well, if we don’t develop it first, the bad guys will” superpower to show itself off, I guess.
the folly of democracy:
If American democracy survived Jackson, Buchanan, Hoover, and Nixon…
Nixon (also Reagan and Johnson) severely damaged it, Trump is just the end stage.
Then it’ll probably be so exhausted it won’t survive trump?
You’re making this statement while standing over a dead body. Need to pause for a moment and smell the flesh starting to turn right beneath you. This is that moment. There was never going to be a letter embossed with a seal sent to you to announce it. America is dead, our neighbors quietly suffocated it with a pillow. And today is the next day. The changes will be quieter, more subtle at first, but longer reaching, more impactful and longer lasting.
trump wasn’t elected, a train, driven by hate and fear, overflowing with explosives that’s been fixed on everything you think you know about America was elected. The holocaust branded with trump’s name will be quieter, I imagine it will take longer, but it will probably collectively kill more.
America is the name of a country that used to attempt to maintain democracy. It’s the country the failed that mission in 2024. Anything you hear otherwise is self soothing. You’re entitled to it though, we all are, because hope is dead and that’s what used to bring us back to earth in difficult moments.
People are not basically good. People don’t “come to their senses” and we’re all just so fixing tired while they are all just in so much fucking adderall.
-
musk will be in charge of the National Highway transportation safety board
-
rfk jr will oversee vaccine production/distribution
-
abbott will lead formation of the National laws on abortion and miscarriage
-
joe rogan will be the named author on a new fairness doctrine (that won’t actually be)
-
tim scott and lindsey graham will co-chair the committee on reforming LGBTQIA+ rights
-
steve bannon will be on every month’s cover of normal skin magazine
-
that church guy and trump’s close buddy that just got in trouble for abusing kids will be in charge of repealing the sex offender registry
-
mike johnson’s son will be in charge of porn
-
betsy devos will come back to finish devastating the DOE as public education is killed in favor of vouchers to religious schools
-
and brawndo will be what plants crave.
Maybe those of you that stayed home will actually read protect 2025 now. It’s all going to happen.
America is dead, our neighbors quietly suffocated it with a pillow.
Canada and Mexico?
Domestic neighbors
The holocaust branded with trump’s name
Bullshit, Harris Biden and the DNC are 100% oboard with it too. Its a little late for lies isnt it?
Sure, Bud.
Sure, Bud.
We are all a bit stunned, but we have 4 years to think about what happened and why. Lets not just jump to an easy conclusion on hour 1 day 1.
It’s not an easy conclusion - what’s easy is for you to glance past the reality in my statement and to ignore the implication that, yes, It is a part of a greater set of causes, but I was stating that it was the deciding factor that ultimately decided this on day one when she announced.
Calm down, listen, think, respond.
Calm down? Was my saying we now have 4 years to ponder this deeply something that sounded rushed to you? Time to avail myself of that handy “block user” button.
America is dead
You’re thirty years to late to write The End of History. Fukuyama wasn’t right about it then, either.
Maybe those of you that stayed home
Speak for yourself. She only lost because you didn’t vote hard enough.
-
They all paved the way for trump to fucking topple it.
Things are quite different. While Trump was in office, he did multiple things that were worse than what Nixon did, and was never forced to leave office. I think our institutions were stronger back then. We didn’t have a very good democracy when Hoover was president, and it took many decades for the Voting Rights Act to get passed (which has recently been weakened by SCOTUS, and will probably be weakened much more). I think we’ll regress quite a bit. Republicans obviously want more of an autocracy/oligarchy. I think it’s a very real possibility we have Russia-style “elections” in the future, and I don’t even know how you come back from that. Assuming democracy isn’t completely destroyed, it may take many decades of fighting and changing the minds of the people who aren’t disenfranchised to get back to where we were. Hell, even civil war is on the table if Trump follows through on some of his more egregious promises (i.e. if he deems Democratic state governments as the “enemy within” and tries to use the military to depose them).
Thank you for giving me a bitter laugh.
US is system is so bad. The constant pandering to “founding fathers” as if it’s even possible to have strong enough vision that it would last 200+ years and refusal to innovate past the ridiculous two party system is just sad tbh.
Yet nothing will change because you can’t change these things without a revolution apparently.
Some states have already replaced First Past the Post voting actually
Not to mention that the founding fathers would hate what has become of American politics…
YOU FREED THE WHAT?!
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.
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.
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.
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.”
