one thing i keep thinking about is how there is simply no way to design a constitutional system that can resist authoritarian incursion if participants in that system do not actually care that much
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congress right now has all the power it needs to put an end to MAGA despotism. they just don’t want to. and there is no set of rules you could devise that could overcome that obstacle.
I'm tempted to say public opinion plays a role too, but as you've said Democrats act like public opinion can't be changed. If they act like business as usual the public is going to assume that is the case.
I mean a different system would elect different people. A blue candidate in a 51% red district isn’t in congress but under a different system they could be.
It is not just the elected politicians, it is the voters who elected those politicians. True, some MAGA voters now find themselves affected by the actions of the fascist government, but they wholeheartedly support Trump and MAGA. They support the policy goals, they just didn’t think it’d be them.
How do you share a democracy with ~30% voters who don’t want a democracy? Who don’t want decisions made by voters, but by a “strong” man? THAT I think is the question, and I think the answer is you cannot. Whatever rules/laws you pass (to protect voting rights, etc.), they feel entirely…
…justified in ignoring/subverting. You cannot play a game of chess against someone who randomly removes pieces when you’re not looking (or even as you’re looking, and still denies it), moves pieces in ways that are not allowed, etc. There must be federal election standards. They must be enforced.
Or else, that state is no longer admitted to the Union. You either agree to the rules that we all follow, or you go do your own North Korean thing, and have a cult of personality.
How did the government unify two parties that had completely opposite beliefs after the Civil War? From what I read, the Republican party was liberal until a generation or two after the war, when men gained more wealth and changed laws to help themselves.
there's got to be plenty of things you can do to make it less easy to profit from being a collaborator, disincentivizing corruption, etc. overturning Citizens United? add another 200 members to the house and abolish the Senate?
My sincere question is, do you think the Pelosi/Shumer types ever believed in anything? They pontificate about the constitution and the eye of history and all that. But now they’re just doing things that only people who ignore history could do.
(1) Naive question, please forgive me: do members of congress even discuss matters with members of the opposing party? is there any degree of internal debate, friendly questioning & challenging, any attempt to persuade folks to vote outside their party block?
(2) In days of yore (i.e. "Profiles in Courage?), we'd read or hear about how compromise worked in the past, competing concerns coming together for the sake of preserving the country. Is $ so important now, to each politician, that they cannot muster up an ounce of courage to speak out for justice?
(3) The margins in both the Senate & House are thin. It would only take a relative few republicans in each chamber to thwart what is happening. Is it insane to wonder why this cannot be accomplished, either by reason or plea for humanity? Are things not at such a cynical state, the $ is almighty?
Obama spent 8 years reaching out to republicans and getting rebuffed. Biden spent 4 years doing the same. It is understandable that Democrats might not want to carry on doing the same thing indefinitely. If the republicans want bipartisanship, let *them* reach out.
Limiting the pardon power would help a little because participants would then have to consider not just what they can get away with today but how it might play out in the future. The DOGE boys might be more timid if they thought a change in admin might bring a 20 year computer tampering charge.
“Congress right now has all the power it needs” - you mean with or without Republican defections? What can the Democratic minority do that it’s not doing? (Outside of competing better in the court of public opinion)
Every single D should vote no on every Republican bill and every Republican nominee until the crimes stop. Yes, the government will go to a shutdown, and there will even be a risk of default. The other option is complicity in destruction of the country, which is worse.
I do think a large step in the right direction would be to make voting compulsory for citizens.
Australia does it and it's been noted by political scholars that the end result is much less polarization, and no campaigns rely on more/less voter turnout to succeed.
I heard that the Australians make election day into a good time, with barbecue served and everything. And they hold it on the weekend.
Which would make so much sense here, as a start. Tuesday doesn't work when people have to choose between keeping their job and voting (some employers will not care)
I agree! they also dip everyone's pinkie in red dye to add a layer of verification to make sure no one double votes or completes someone else's ballot. Even little things like that would go a long way in removing all of the "people voting for 5 dead grandparents" rumors
At this point probably not. But better rules around elections, voting systems, and information environment are/were possible that make congresspeople more responsive to voters, and we declined to recognize/address the danger in failing to implement them long ago.
In "Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell Into Tyranny," Edward J. Watts lists massive wealth inequality and the acceptance of political violence among the factors that led to the republic's downfall after nearly 500 years.
Watts' book was published in 2018, well ahead of 1/6/21.
So, do the Democrats in Congress have that power, or just the Republicans, or the two jointly?
The Republicans have zero incentive to end the despot's rule. So you won't see them act solely or as a party. And I suspect Democrats don't have that power.
there is, but it was disallowing Republican candidates who are clearly opposed to democracy from running from office, and removing those clearly opposed from office they currently hold, for either failure or inability to abide by their legally binding oath to follow and defend the Constitution
Like: Democracy is not a suicide pact. Civil Rights, Free Speech, and Free Elections are not suicide pacts. We are not required to allow antidemocratic and tyrannical forces to operate in our society, and in-fact maintaining a free society REQUIRES we DONT Allow them to operate.
As someone who worked the polls for NYC's first ranked-choice mayor primary, implementing that system takes a lot of explaining to voters, both what it is and how they are supposed to mark their ballots accordingly. Some misunderstood the instructions and voted for just one candidate, same as usual.
That also means that in order for ranked choice voting to work, voters have to read up on their candidates (which they don't) or the candidates have to make a wider effort to introduce themselves to the public. They'd have to be informed enough to read the ballot and not just looking for the R or D.
When it comes to RCV, voter education drives are vital. I also think that having a closed primary can help with the picking party over candidate. I like the idea of an open primary more, but with so much power the two parties have, doing a closed primary is better for this moment.
Exactly. Maybe just maybe, this is America now, that voters are ok with a fascistic government with cruel policies, systemic racism and bigotry is ok. Lack of good education is ok. I just know that I am not okay with it.
How much of this lack of want amongst Congresspeople is a function of what they perceive (accurately or not) to be a similar lack in their constituents?
Well, we could amend the C to include VP & Prez in rules that currently don’t cover them. We could say convicted felons are not eligible to hold Federal office. The Founders were clearly too trusting of the potential holders of the two highest offices.
Congress is more concerned with appeasing their corporate interests and the dark money that keeps them in power, then they are with serving the people. Not just the money at election time, but all the favors, kickbacks, insider trading that goes on all term long. Major reforms are needed.
Corporate Democrats need to be primaried. We need better security checks for all elected officials. No one with ties to an enemy state should be eligible for elected office.
I have a lower stake comparison but it redounds similarly. When Hochul announced she was cancelling CP - it was completely lawless as there was zero basis for it under the law. She eventually relented bc she was going to lose the lawsuits and there was no other reasonable alternative funding ... 1/2
mechanism. But most telling was the cowardice from the state legislative bodies. The leaders should've threatened impeachment immediately, regardless of the merits of the policy, as it was clear usurpation of their power. But they acquiesced to this usurpation by acting as if the governor could.
There WERE rules that kept this from happening. The US Constitution was built on social norms and traditions. The US Constitution explicitly relies on men of good intention as understood in the 18th century.
If members of Congress can't be challenged to duels because of mean tweets anymore.
It is 100% true. Read any of the Federalist Papers and they are full of references to social norms and expectations. Words like impeachment carried a completely different connotation even a few decades ago. Nixon resigned office to avoid being impeached. Trump grew more popular after being impeached
No. More that the Constitution didn't take some threats seriously because the social norms made them beyond the pale. People getting caught lying to the public were shunned. There was no reason to build in rules to prevent this type of behavior.
No. I am saying that they built the system on top of existing rules of society. For example, there is no mention of English as the official language because the going in assumption was that everyone would speak, read and understand English. That is just how systems get build.
The cowards are prioritizing their jobs over country. The set of rules you’re looking for is term limits for everyone. Make representation a public service again, not a grift.
I'm done with the Democrats if they give in to the Republicans. I'm crushed! What the hell has to happen for them to fight!! I will not vote for those that aid Trump's destruction of America. Voting with Republicans is bending the knee.
Jamelle, you say "Congress" as if it were a completely independent institution.
Congress is currently in the hands of the GOP, who have been taken over by Trump/MAGA. Congress doesn't have the "power" if that majority is set on enabling MAGA despotism.
The issue everyone is missing is the definition of America. Reading the Constitution, there’s plenty of wiggle room to decide all people are judged by the same laws, or that injecting moral judgement into those laws yield different readings. Whose morals count? Depends on the morality of the reader.
This is why the most heinous person imaginable as President is hailed as Patriot by large swaths of citizens. They have a different definition of “Patriot”. The U.S. has no incorruptible standards bearer to define itself.
The assumption of the Constitution was to remove the possibility of monarchy and religious influence over a diverse population. The U.S. doesn’t have enough leadership willing to obey that directive and there’s nothing to stop people from disobeying it. I call on the Military to fix it.
The GOP under Bush and Cheney threw out the last sane centrists circa 2006. The last sane one at the national level was probably Sen. Lincoln Chafee, the only Republican to vote against the Iraq War. The purge of the GOP arguably was begun by Gingrich in the 1990s.
It's because of the type of person that Republicans now send to congress. They don't see themselves as a coequal branch of government. They're potential Fox News guests who occasionally have to vote on something or other.
"We declare a year is a day." This is a mediaeval court doing the bidding of an absolute monarch, reality be damned. American politics is a fucking clown show.
They don’t want to because the flaw in this system is that they both want this to happen, and when the damns break, they can claim it was not them to their constituents.
Yes, BUT - That is where WE come in. If we care, we must intensify and keep up the pressure on our representatives. We must motivate them to act in our interest i.e. do their job.
These are the people who couldn’t defend the constitution when President Obama nominated a Supreme Court Justice to replace Scalia, which was a back breaker when it came to the first Trump regime’s attack on this country through the court system. They are wimps to the core.
I don't know that Elon level wealth relative to the the average working class salary ever existed before in history. I may be wrong, but think that size of financial lever has never been brought to bear on a government before.
Rockefeller was worth $1.4 billion when he died in 1937, equivalent to about $24 billion in dollars in 2018 when adjusting for inflation. The larger number is adjusting based on %GDP, or purchasing power. Neither are entirely accurate, but still much richer than I thought. I stand corrected!
And that's before you go back to say Louis XIV when the peasants had pretty much nothing. But that's not to say that's what we should be aiming for or that having rogue oligarchs calling the shots is in anyway likely to work for the common good.
Yeah, the founders trusted that only one branch might be corrupt at one time, failing to take mass buyoffs into consideration. A constitution made for a moral people, and wholly inadequate for the government of any other.
Might help, though, if you had a single legislature with proportional representation, rather than two competing legislatures, one with super majority rules, and both poorly representative of the full population.
This💯 I was going to ask to @jamellebouie.net to define participants. I think most active voters would consider themselves participants and yet congress, the only ones with actual voices, don’t accurately represent most voters: Overwhelmingly white, rich, cis, straight, or male and right leaning.
The first test is whether Democrats in the Senate allow the Trump regime House bill to pass, given it ratifies all of the lawless impoundment Musk and Trump are doing.
Senate Republicans are, of course, useless authoritarian cultists.
The judicial branch may need some way to enforce law (a dedicated law enforcement agency?). A lawless executive and a supine legislature are the secret sauce for authoritarian-minded Republicans.
Rachel Maddow last night explained that Congress has the ability to stop doge’s the illegal activities. They’re trying a truly bizarre proposal to avoid this.
Reminds me a lot of the pilot that allegedly had a bad mushroom trip and just decided to shut off the engines. In this case though, it's the co-pilot deep in a ketamine hole after being spurned by Grimes and every other woman who's ever been within a six foot radius of His Weirdness.
Spineless GOP. Exited the party under Bush 2, never ending war and making women 2nd class citizens AGAIN. Moderate I am, but w/only 2 real parties, we need to make sure that no 1 party dominates especially w/ a narcissistic, money mongering grifter, where POTUS is the clown of the show 🤡 + alien. 👎
You have to address the underlying causes and create systems that limit the power anyone can amass so bad actor or not the harm they can do can't stretch very far.
You can. The US and Soviet Union has to consider this problem for Command & Control of Nuclear Missiles during the Cold War. Launch systems would need a second positive affirmation to launch
The system will always have been flawed as it was built in a society of VERY flawed people. It was always going to be an uphill battle.
But there might be accidental design. We might be so ingrained and integrated in the global community that between them and the 60 odd % of us can wrestle it back.
That is what rule of law is about. Everyone accepts the rule of law. You can't play tic-tac-toe if the participants don't accept the simply idea that the rules govern their behavior and following the rules makes the game work.
One way of addressing that is proportional representation. In the country I live in, we have a form of that, & we operate within the Westminster system. To this day, our head of State is the King of England. Weirdly enough, we’ve ended up with a superior and more robust
democracy than the US.
We shouldn't take it for granted. Disinfo, lack of political and media literacy are a risk that will erode faith in our political system. There are even fewer checks and balances against elected idiots/vandals here!
ACT NOW.
Call your reps. Demonstrate. Boycott. Support others who are able to more active/public than you.
Cross the midterm bridge when you get to it - you gotta walk the road you're on first.
This is so true, I have had people that have said you were right I should have listened to you and I voted wrong, we have to keep on putting the word out and keep up the Resistance
yes. AND there are lots of people in first class trained to land the plane in an emergency and it would be GREAT if they would begin that process rather than let it slam into a cliff
...Yes. If they're part of the terror, why would they de-seat the captain? I get it.
AND I think what's ALSO happening is people are cowards & waiting for a more adult-y adult that isn't coming. "The pilot might shoot me!" yes he might! AND it's your job & we are speeding towards immovable objects!
Not to mention, how do you maintain democracy when people vote for a self-proclaimed dictator? Arguing that maybe 10% of his voters this time were fooled doesn’t really get at the issue.
... Rules establishing that wealth and power guidelines (elected official, law enforcement and other state sanctioned violence, etc) set everyone else's outer perimeter of enforcement. If such a person colorably did X, their punishment is the max punishment of everyone else. Important to this ...
Right? Like I don't think we can get powerful people to be ethical up and down the line anymore, but I do think you can scare them into behaving - or minimally not circling the wagons - with the threat of giving the 99% carte blanche to be exactly equally unethical.
I think congress wants to, but they just don’t want to give up their jobs to save it. That is the irony. They don’t do their jobs in order to save their jobs.
US constitution is seriously & intentionally flawed - it’s designed to over-represent small states. The ridiculous Senate is our “House of Lords” - completely anti-democratic and arbitrary. The fed court system was almost an afterthought - SCOTUS basically polices itself (or not).
When created, the constitution was a naive compromise to maintain the status quo of the day. Only one other country in the world ever used our constitution as its model: the CSA. That alone should answer all questions.
I think the Founders thought ambition+electoral college would be able to stop someone like Trump. Madison reallllly underestimated how strong faction would be. Well, at least, didn’t anticipate the internet making it easier for a faction to gain so much strength.
I'm not well-versed on Founding principles, but in my negligible reading, it seems like they didn't want factionalism to overpower duty to constituents and therefore didn't particularly approve of a party-based election system. https://www.history.com/news/founding-fathers-political-parties-opinion
While Congress absolutely should impeach and convict Trump, actually removing him from office would be difficult as he has probably consolidated the power to resist any effort to do so.
The media landscape needs to change and Fox News needs to die. That would help.
We also need to educate citizens like our lives depend on it, because, lo and behold, they do.
Sadly, one of the objectives seems to limit education unless you can afford private school. See where I’m going with this.
Hierarchy and aristocracy.
Oppress the poor basically.
They need to be threatened w/ primaries from the left. If they are threatened from both sides they might just decide to do the right thing. Their other option is to do nothing, still get primaried, and leave a destroyed nation turned dystopian hellscape in their wake.
Sure there is. You empower the FEC to set rules and limit campaign contributions. I've long been of the mind that Citizens United, more than any other case or legislation in the past ~50 years, has been at fault for the degradation of our political system
This is what drives me crazy about people saying "the constitution failed". It has clear remedies for what to do here. That the people we've entrusted to execute those duties are instead shirking them is not on the constitution itself
That is also downstream of the problem that the degradation of civic education and trust in institutions has produced a population that largely does not know or care what’s at stake when a global civilizational paradigm comes undone.
Which one could see since Reagan was Governor of California and Nixon was President, though Republicans did not really get this rolling until Reagan was elected President.
That's exactly the point. If the participants don't care, there is little the system can do to stop it. A system is made up of people following a system. If enough people stop following the system, the system breaks down, not matter how good it was designed.
"i don't want to"
sounds like a defiant petulant child that is now in charge of the household and dictating to everyone else. maybe we need to have people who want to hold office prove they are competent adults with ethics not simplistic children who just don't care
Understand the concept and don't disagree, but government dependent on 'beliefs' (even for good) isn't something I want. Ethics tests can be objective. Belief tests cannot. And yeah, I really like that whole government of, by, and for the people idea. We should keep it.
They want this. Everything they say and do proves how vehemently they despise liberal democracy. As usual, we just don’t believe them on their word because we’re so convinced everyone wants what we want.
I'd argue that our first past the post voting method, along with artificial barriers we create due to our cultural distrust of government, has led to the complete paralysis of the people's representation in Congress that we see today.
If the Democrats had a majority in the House and a supermajority in the Senate, things would be much different.
If it wasn’t for the right-wing media ecosystem, and the normalization of Trump by MSM, he wouldn’t be president and there would be fewer right-wing extremists in Congress.
Every time they have, they are too nice to the opposition. The opposition pulls stunts, screams, throws tantrums and the Democrats give in on some level.
One third really, really want it. They didn't believe they'd be impacted but they wanted it enough to accept everything else.
Another third did not care enough to stop it. What they did not want was NOT enough to get them into a voting booth to stop it.
Congress has become what the the Roman Senate was at the end of the Republican period. They're just in it for the social status - and the money of course - and has no interest in governing.
They are complicit. And i have a feeling that access to tax breaks/tax loopholes, lobbying jobs, and other handshake deals are the reason for their spinelessness.
We need recall provisions that automatically trigger votes when a court agrees that preconditions have been met. For example, if you can show, to a less-than-criminal standard of evidence, that an elected has deliberately misled their constituents or broken their oath of office, a vote is scheduled
Yeah, we need better ways to remove judges too. I like the idea of letting Bar Associations remove judges over their jurisdictions for specious reasoning. But, I've little reason to think the BAs are reliable institutions, either.
Perhaps the Judges' Association should be involved... or not.
I mean, Westminsterism would structurally encourage Republicans to attack Trump right now, because one of them could become leader within weeks and without a general election.
Let’s not forget that Liz Truss was already out by this point into her tenure. And all she’d really done at that point is rattle the markets with her *proposed* mini-Budget.
That would solve the problems specific to Trump, which are big, but not the authoritarianism. The problem is that voters have been sending authoritarian politicians into office for a few decades now, who have been appointing authoritarian appointees, and now they’re spread across the govt.
On the other hand, Congress wrote the rules for presidential succession, and not unsurprisingly put the two most powerful people in Congress in slots 2 and 3, and that doesn't seem like sufficient incentive right now.
I dunno, the UK's long line of failed PMs rather clearly demonstrated that's not much of a backstop if the majority party is determined to present incompetent leadership.
Yes, this is not feasible under our constitution, but the prompt was “no constitutional system,” and I think the world’s Westminsterist constitutions have a better defense against this.
At least on paper there's no reason you couldn't use the impeachment power as a straightforward no confidence vote without any implication of illegal activity.
There are absolutely better ways to do this, constitutional systems with stronger defenses against authoritarianism, but they still hinge necessarily on the people who would use those mechanisms wanting to use them. And you can't force that with rules. You can do better, but not foolproof.
this is true, nothing can guarantee that members of Congress use their constitutional tools to preserve democracy. I believe we can design a system that increases the odds that this happens, but it can't be guaranteed--and current system has clearly failed.
Republicans have the power to stop this. They are choosing not to. Maybe holding people accountable and upholding the rule of law equally would make a difference?
Blame McConnell for his reign of parliamentary exploitation, now taken to extremes by a majority of dishonorable actors in subservience to a wannabe dictator.
How do we stop people from using their power to give themselves more power?
Legally, that's not something i can explain.
Nah, but social scientists and people studying bureaucracies and control theories and media etc should ostensibly be looking into that, but only stem enriches ologarchs so 🤷🏽♂️
Gop congress could pass a law stopping musk and demand trump return to 2017 style corrupt governance. Instead they’re ok with begging musk to stop impoundment just for certain gop districts because they’re ok with musk stealing more from democrats. Gop voters could also object if they wanted
This has long been an issue
Consider the US approach to the meaning of words in laws.
Like ‘children’.
I see cases where a child “will be tried as an adult”.
But a child is not an adult.
If you have laws that make a difference between adults and children, but can just redefine’children, then 🤷🏻♂️
Actually there are some things that could be done to prevent a tyranny of the majority especially in areas like Congress’ checks and balances. For example, requiring supermajorities for things like giving up Congress’ power to end Presidential emergencies and ending the 2 party system.
1/ Design a constitutional system that is airtight against big money in any way, shape or form. Regulate the F out of industry. Prioritize the people and the planet: education, health, environment. Harden election law and get rid of electoral college. Age and term limits in Congress.
No congress does not have the power to end maga have you not seen musk at work? Congress cannot stop them- only the courts can employ a separate law enforcement agency to physically stop trump and Elon. Please learn more about this so you don’t deceive your followers.
Not much to do about Congress voluntarily giving up its power, but real enforcement mechanisms for judicial impropriety are consonant with a constitutional system, and they’d help.
I don't think this is actually true. If a simple majority of the House could remove a president, House Rs in swing districts would face intense pressure to do so—and might even pull the trigger because once Trump is out it's much harder for him to retaliate.
Perhaps the third branch, the Supreme Court and all courts under it will overcome it. There's also the 2nd Amendment.
Madison wrote how a federal army could be kept in check by the militia, "a standing army would be opposed [by] militia.", "..forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition".
I'm just an old lady sitting in her living room remembering my civics studies. Checks and balances and all that.
Clearly the current Congress is embracing an abdication of its power. But there are options for those of us who are not interested in a King Trump.
Or we just accept and learn Russian.
That’s exactly right. Musk and trump are burning it down but the GOP is providing matches and gasoline instead of hosing it down and grabbing the extinguishers.
Yes but the point was proportional voting IS an answer to people not turning out right because almost everywhere that uses it has higher turn out than FPTP systems
Is it that they all don't want to, or are some of them just afraid to? Either way, they are complicit in the destruction of our democracy,& they will survive the installation of authoritarian rule because most if not all of them have $. The elderly & poor will suffer beyond anything we've ever seen.
Congress has been worthless ever since the Gingrich era. The Senate is just a place for rich egotists to preen—as it became in Rome after the Republic died. The Founders made many mistakes—the EC was one—but one of the worst was creating this beastie rather than follow Britain’s parliamentary system
We have so many mechanisms in place for Congress and the courts to stop this, but not a single mechanism in place to actually make them do their job of stopping it.
would you say Congress or Republicans in Congress bc i have yet to hear anything terribly effective that Dems can really do (except get arrested or something)
The majorities in congress are just fine with rule by executive order.
One thing that would really help is for these judges having to contend with trump’s lawyers making frivolous arguments to start filing ethics complaints. “It boggles my mind” is nice in a ruling, but not enough.
I agree with your larger point, but if Trump was a Prime Minister, they could hold a vote of no confidence and that would end things. Impeachment is a much higher bar and much more difficult politically.
This, the US system provides particualry intense protections to the president that are not available to other leaders. It also provides extraordinary moral authority.
In a parliamentary system there is also the backstop of the head of state forcing elections. They probably loose power after, but...
That and you don't have a special vote of no confidence. *EVERY* vote that had to do with finances is automatically a confidence vote. In the US 3 GOP voting against the CR in Congress would mean immediate elections. Period.
Confidence in what? When a parliamentary system dissolves a government, it doesn't dissolve the executive; it dissolves the legislature which by extension dissolves the executive since executive are drawn from Legislative,and thereby the government (except Judiciary of course).
I don't claim to know everything, but I am capable of learning... and I do enjoy learning. Thanks. ⚘️
I do know there's a lot of folks who have no confidence in our government that seems filled with bad actors.
Trust in government is low across the board in developed nations. US up untill very recently was functionally a better state than most of its European peers, especially in light of the 2008 financial crisis. Now all that's upended.
Just because they could hold such a vote doesn't mean it would happen. They *could* do things right now and they don't.
It's not the rules, it's the people who are either cowards or don't care whether their own country has democracy in name only. As long as they keep *their* jobs.
But I/C/R isn't inherently difficult; the problem is the voters are undereducated + gluttonous + lazy, and our electeds reflect this--the government IS us, and then the mechanism we're given by the Constitution isn't applied or applied properly. A car can't run with an impaired or absent driver.
Here's some basic ideas to start.https://open.substack.com/pub/rshrevepro/p/what-will-the-us-do-after-trump-and?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=4wrfos
It's not really that they don't care as much as they don't see a problem because they're literally consuming different information. I've run out of ways to explain this.
I dunno, this one I think leans into education, critical thinking, and indoctorination(I've seen so many, "my parents taught me to be x"). The thing is, it dosen't take too much effort to realize there are two sides of a coin, and they aint lookin on the other side usually.
The low-effort, low-information Trump voter is simply rarely ever changing the channel.
That 'channel' can be Fox news, or it can be considered everything their Facebook friends are feeding them, or what they hear on the radio in their car. But it's a different information bubble ecosystem.
.. again, we imagine them consuming everything we do and then coming to an insane, fascist conclusion - that's not what's happening. They're really just not consuming the same stuff, in the same way.
This is why! They are being brainwashed over decades. I literally watched my liberal father disintegrate into a person I know longer knew. He passed in '12. He spent alot of time in Red states, because he was a caterer, & his last few years were with a country singer. https://youtu.be/2a8EcXk4KEM?si=cJa5jq0htbMgbWKh
It starts with the media telling/showing different stories and then the algorithms are sealing the deal. But in the end, the people elected to represent us all really know, deep down, what is happening yet are so addicted to the power that they are unwilling to stop it.
People aren’t just consuming other sources but doing so—it seems—uncritically. And I think that suggests some pretty troubling things about their instincts, judgment, opinions, or capacities for critical thinking.
TRUTH!!!!
Couple this with intentional misinformation firehosed into our various social media platforms, & news organizations run as businesses, by/for the 1%!
Our 4th Estate has fallen! Live in a fairly well-educated, reasonably
affluent town without a local newspaper!!! Politics is local first!
Especially when the leadership is bunch of racist haters seeking privilege & power over law & order and they are followed by a bunch of racist IGNORANT haters who expect they will receive privileges from der leader.
Not having one person with so much power to act unilaterally might help. But it's true that no system can prevent those in power ( eg Republicans) from changing the rules to make them less democratic.
Parliamentary democracy works in Canada. We don’t vote for Prime Minister; it’s a bottom-up model where local votes decide which party governs. Rather than top-down with the President holding primary power.
All it takes in this case is enough provinces electing candidates who are the equivalent of the 21st century GOP. Other parliamentary systems have been undone by bad actors following the letter but not the spirit of the law.
Sure, it can happen but it takes a lot of bad actors to disrupt the system deliberately. More often, people tire of a particular party or another is more attractive. Unlike the US, there isn’t as much focus on the party, or identifying as a legacy and we certainly don’t worship the office of PM.
The U.S.’s fixation of the president is an important difference. However, I’d point to Italy in 1922, Hungary in 2010 and even the U.S. now to see how quickly national sentiments can change.
We certainly have a lot of bad players now and they are indeed disrupting the system deliberately. I wonder if Curtis Yarvis ever studied this.
What we are going thru is terrifying. We could lose the entire thing, our entire democracy.
And MAGATS think that's the desirable outcome.
W.T.F.??????
Well the core feature is embedding a high level of civil understanding and virtue through education and public education. The democracy cannot just be people showing up for elections if it is to last.
One key difference in the US system is the fixed election dates can be a problem. In Canada, a non-confidence motion can force a new election. The US needs something like that.
It could be that fixed elections remain, but a term could be cut into 2 or more if an unscheduled election was needed.
Agree with @pauliticaleye.bsky.social , we need serious election reform to renew confidence in the system AND assign accountability to corruption.
#RCV is crucial to escape the 'better of two evils' BS.
Under 'Reforms' I include Congress Member recalls to address party-switching and no-confidence:
The recent Liberal leadership in Canada (we have a new PM) was ranked choice (#RCV) and worked well. Our outgoing PM, Justin Trudeau, wanted RCV for our elections but didn't want to force it through; hr wanted consensus across parties (which never came). #ElectoralReform
I also don't think they anticipated the vast dilution of voting rights for citizens in populous states. The sparsely populated rural states with outsize E.C. and Senate power are a massive problem. We don't need two Dakotas, thanks.
Agreed, popular vote (removing electoral college) would be an improvement as well. Especially with some sort of 'mandatory voting' like other countries. US citizens often don't vote because they don't feel they matter.
We need to demand election reform for our voices to be heard.
Even if we had such a system, I doubt that this Congress would hold a vote of confidence. It may be that having a fixed election date can be our salvation.
Enough of Trump's actions already cross beyond merely wrongheaded and dangerous into full on illegality (literally speedrunning his first impeachment), which we do technically have a remedy for, and they aren't interested in that either.
A parliamentary, multi-party system led to authoritarianism in Germany AND our system also produced it. However, it didn't help that our system was DESIGNED to give more power to rural areas than more populated ones because of racism/slavery. He wouldn't have won in 2016 in a straight popular vote.
Well yeah there is. If you take out the electoral college and have direct popular vote elections. Also, if you make congressional/senate representation a true function of population too. And term limits. Then, you can also ban the ways senators and reps enrich themselves.
This is a by-product of having political parties. It's a shame the founders didn't add their exclusion into the constitution. What we have seen is "Party" being used as a wedge to break checks and balances. Basically equal branches are now colluding and unaccountable to the people.
It's kinda like the tariffs. A country's ability to win this battle will depend on its citizen's willingness to put up with the economic pressure its leaders place on them. I suspect Canadians will have more patience than Americans will, mainly because Trump has squandered so much good will.
Exactly! Checks and balances must be initiated or they are worthless. Laws must be enforced or you destroy your country in favour of insurrectionists and oligarchs.
From what I can see, some of the Republicans do care, but the threats to their families are making them toe the line, according to some poster. I can understand that, but I would rather quit than not defend my country. Others are brainwashed, and it will be hard for them to see the real truth...
I have had similar thoughts. Plenty of people have passively "cared" about our country and constitution but clearly not many cared enough to be active in protecting it.
You are right. Democracy is an idea and a choice humans make. They do not have to make that choice. I did write a book that describes how the most successful version of democracy on Earth looks and works. Hint: it's not human.
"The Human Idea: Earth's Newest Ecosystem."
They just stopped the current CR from happening today. I think a level of patience is in order before taking a dump on the only people that have our best interest in mind. Unless you are a Republican. Are you a Republican?
Kiss my ass. They were working in the structure they were given. Everyone expects magic in a non magical universe. Not one of you asshole voted for a warrior you voted for accounts which makes sense cause laws use to rule.
Yeah, all we hear is" We can't stoop to their level" Welp, that level is steamrolling us right now and we brought this on with our perceived moral High Ground. We allowed Maga to be the loudest voice since 2016..Trump should have been defeated easily, but the Dinosaur Dems are too busy fundraising
And wherein the system is mostly based on the assumption that people will behave properly and respect rules simply out of ethics. The whole US concept of checks and balances is the assumption that each branch will behave and the others will do something about it if not. We see how that is going.
That makes zero sense. They thought of war against monarchy and theocracy. Then created a set of rules to prevent that from happening again. Were they perfect? No. Were they just as corrupt or immoral as politicians today? No way.
I’m gonna be honest, the original voting set up of the United States was, in true republican form (active v passive citizens) was that only white men who owned property could vote. They wanted a republic, not a democracy, there is a difference. The early history of the U.S. is also VERY ugly.
This is particularly so for Republican members of Congress, who have the power to restrict Trump’s illegal actions but instead sit silently as Trump takes a wrecking ball to our democracy.
That was my thought when Democratic leadership refused to even consider impeaching Reagan over Iran-Contra: that for all their foresight, it didn't occur to the Founders that one day we'd just shrug the whole thing off.
How about an executive policy council in which every political party w/ seats in parliament elects a term limited executive member to the council? Any action taken or executive order by the E.C. must be unanimously endorsed by all members of the council. Impasses resolved by votes in legislature
You're correct but I hope you're including the voters as "participants." To our everlasting shame, Trump was re-elected in 2024...as a bloc the voters didn't care enough.
Or are willing to apply the laws EQUALLY to everyone, ensure ALL people have the same BASIC human rights.
America & the world is DIVERSE. We're unique yet contribute with EQUITY to be respectfully INCLUDED in society as human beings, NOT a label others put on us.
Of course….the reason America is in this position at this point is not because of Trump…he’s just the carnival barker…and it’s not because of Republicans…they have always worked for an oligarchy…the reason America is where it is is because of AMERICANS….they VOTED for this shit.
Exactly…the only group worse than the morons who voted for these criminals are the absolutely gutless cowards who didn’t vote at all…all of us on this platform are suffering because of criminals, morons and gutless cowards…that’s the American hat trick.
Same here. “Checks and balances” depends completely on people being willing to uphold the Constitution and not just go along with one person’s wishes. We’re selling our country to the ultra wealthy.
Almost seems like the founding fathers that stole this land, attempted an ethnic cleanse of the indigenous people, and sold the land to the highest bidder. Wanted to create a democracy governed by the people. Lmao karma works in mysterious ways.
And if we look at evidence around America, we don’t care. I think all the time about how Trump was elected after he was involved and directed January 6, and when I step back, I marvel about how badly that bodes for us.
Because fascism is just the inherent element in liberal representative constitutional democracy, that activates when people get complacent and parochial. There wasn’t any real fascism before there liberal democracy. Fascism is the passive parasite that wakes and kills the host.
Sure, but the US system seems designed to manufacture apathy.
Proportional representation allows for several viable parties & this means more folks can be passionate about politics & at least one of those parties.
The US system has a bad and a (much) worse party, both captured by the richest.
Also extra-constitutional nonsense like the fillibuster was which, while it's blocked a couple bad ideas, usually leads to nothing getting done and the average person saying "it's all bullshit"
There is one way to create a democracy constitutional or otherwise that is able to resist Authoritarian incursion but you have to change your mindset of the structure of your Society from Vertical as it is now to a Horizontal structured Society.
A horizontally structured Society eschews privileges.
So you are required to go through your laws and remove all those laws that grant the upper echelons of your Society.
these laws are both overt and covert.
For the upper echelons voices are not more significant than the those of the voices of the lower echelons.
When you remove those laws you closer to a true Democracy as the Democracy you have at the moment is just a Faux Democracy due to all the privileges granted to the upper echelons of your Society. Two diagrams to show the differences the first is what you have now. The second is sans privileges
Once you alter your mind set you will more readily move to a truer Democracy which is a step closer to a pure Democracy which requires a change of mindset about possessing things and people.
All systems work great from the time that the corrupt actors of the previous system are permanently removed and right up until new corrupt actors figure out how to exploit it.
Systemic change is good since no system can regulate itself ad infinitum.
A Parlamentary system like in the UK...they can call a no confidence vote and change the government anytime, more flexible system with more parties that form alliances to change things.
While apathy may have created the climate for authoritarian incursion, what I’m witnesses now is the paralyzing fear of joining the resistance. People are desperate to keep the few resources they have. Many have gone silent. To resist, we need to share resources and build safety-net communities.
This is the problem, but I think deep down a few might care but not enough to man up. Sometimes the threats to their families force them to hold back, or their selfishness to kiss the ring and further their careers. It’s not country first and corruption is hard to fight when there is so much of it.
The question to them is, will they have careers in the newly installed authoritarian regime? Do you have Democrats and Republicans when people aren't allowed to live freely? If there is no voting? This is where we are headed.
I agree, and they are cowards beaten down and probably scared of retribution. They are small spineless people who don’t care about us or the country. They are a disgrace, sending us to a dark place. Their day will come and we will rise. They will be discarded after your years and we will remember.
Voting in a democracy is a basic duty, so impose a small penalty for not voting. Initial result: a lot of people who dont care will vote randomly. But politicians realise that they now must engage EVERY voter. Whatever the result, it will be What.The. Actual. Majority. of people want i.e...Democracy
You're right of course, but the founders did foresee something like this and imagined armed citizens would rally around local elected officials to put down the coup.
I can think of a few Governors I would follow into a fight.
That’s the thing. We are the enforcement. If there was another small entity that could also be lead astray. Think of the movie “The Beekeeper”. We all are about to collectively go fucking rogue and hang a lot of motherfuckers. I want to hear their necks snap.
Strict regulations on money and religious influence on govt. Publicly funded elections, a random element to picking candidates and compulsory participation in elections / govt. Ranked choice voting. This would go a long way.
had anyone told me I would ever be in agreement with something David Brooks said ... but here we are, paraphrasing his words, to the effect that no really good system will hold without good people in it
ack
Thank you, yes, I coming back to this too. The whole thing falls apart when voters will accept any amount of lying/corruption/scandal in exchange for cheaper gas: authoritarian kleptocracy is just inevitable.
People don't care because systems have been set up to make it (a) difficult to be meaningfully involved, (b) hard to understand, and (c) portrayed as "horse races" and games. Education (formal & informal & informational) & reform are needed to actually enable participatory governance.
@jamellebouie.net
I don't think it's that citizens don't care, it's that many are living as busy 'consumers' that feel helpless and don't know what to do. The same effect as abuse and oppression.
Your post also touches on the combined importance of resources like education and income inequality.
... it's back to maslow's hierarchy of needs. it's hard to "care" about politics when you're having to worry about your health, your rent, your food, your education, your job, etc
Yes, that's what @anneapplebaum.bsky.social has been talking about a lot. History shows they fall in line out of self preservation. So they care...just not about the country more than themselves.
True! A family member was angry that Canadians were booing a US hockey team. I said that I was siding with them and asked how she would feel if the PM of Canada said he planned on annexing the U.S. as their 11th province? I said she'd probably be booing too. She had no idea what what T was saying. 🫤
The republican party spent decades preparing their members to roll over & take whatever their leaders handed them. It's just so much easier not to think at all and feelings aren't real anyway.
I feel strongly that the electorate often cares more than the representatives and the
Interests of those two groups are often not aligned, obscured by money and influence made exponentially worse by citizens united. Until that is gone, it’s hard for me to accept your statement. The well is poisoned.
Yup, the founders knew it but they tried their best but no system functions when the requirement for active participation is ignored by 33% of it structure. Congress has always been the point of failure in the US system.
Democracy only works when the people want it to work, and participate in it. We have a lot of people that don't understand or care how it affects them. That's due to a lack of education. The average level of comprehension in America, is 6th grade.
I'd like to leave him out. In the cold in Siberia, in a small cardboard box floating across the ocean, in the desert without a paddle. Anywhere where I never have to hear that name spoken again, except in an obituary.
But, point taken. It would only have taken 1 of a few, to do their job.
This is it. The system has been there, but the electorate has for the past few elections put more and more people into the system who either don’t car or actively want to see the system fail (to their presumed advantage). 😡
After an entire lifetime of assuming the system has worked for most people, once a billionaire breaches the system, they all pour in to aquire more "bennies" as The People's expense. Down with that 👎
I truthfully think in some way or other all politicians
are schisters when the opportunity comes. We have never seen it so out in the open before. I think dems are in no way as bad as the MAGAs but who knows what can happen when one group gets away with everything that the dems could follow suit.
‘Will it be sufficient to mark, with precision, the boundaries of these departments, in the constitution of the government, and to trust to these parchment barriers against the encroaching spirit of power?"
Oh, they care. They just don’t care about the people they represent they care about themselves and have backed themselves into a corner because they sold their souls to attain the position they hold.
There are plenty of good ways to do it. FFS. Make SERIOUS effort to actually look at other constitional systems. Your country is NOT the whole world. No coup happening in UK, NZ, AU, Canada, france, germany. South korea coup quickly averted and pres jailed.
Just becuase one guy who only knows one constitution can't think of how fix it does not mean nobody else in the world can't either. The original US constitution is over 200 years old.
Yea. And it is clearer to me, that while they sometimes still use the word "democracy" Trump voters / MAGA actually were willing to give the actual democracy up because it was looking too DEI for them. They don't care either and think if we just got on the program we would be happier too.
That's why I've grown increasingly pessimistic about the future. A section of the country has decided they would rather have a racist dictatorship than have a democracy that they have to share with "those people." And the Constitution doesn't provide any guardrails once that number gets too large.
the authors of the constitutional system couldn't have anticipated:
① Donald Trump 2017/Donald Trump 2025
② Mitch McConnell/John Thune
③ Paul Ryan/Mike Johnson
It may need to get so bad before the people (not congress) are forced to realize their power. Drump helped us see so many areas in the constitution that need changes. Maybe there should be other ways of making changes if the 51+% majority party is overlooking the obvious deficiencies.
Indeed, the design of checks-and-balances was premised on each branch jealously guarding its powers -- especially Congress, and its "power of the purse." The Republicans long ago lost "norms" and unitary party government no longer has Constitutional guardrails if they don't want them.
Sad but true and they’ll care eventually, but they’ll only care when it affects them financially or otherwise. When they cut Social Security Medicare and Medicaid, they’ll start to care. When their kids can’t go to school, they’ll start to care. Be patient it’s coming.
The system should be designed to have a citizen jury who change every month (randomly chosen) who can nominate leaders that then go for election/nominations. They can also propose changes to bills/executive rules and have budget to advertise why a bill/rule is bad/good so trust in govt can increase.
Too many seem to just go about their lives unaware and uncaring of what's happening around them. Could be too stressed or tired from providing so any down time is doing something other than news (actual news). Just guessing. People get complacent in their rut.
47’s enablers are holding all the cards. The ones we would have thought of as ethical in the past are almost worse than him. They are letting it happen because they are chicken shits and apparently they all have bone spurs.
Those who do care that much must SHOW (not tell) those who don't why caring is important, making caring a positive reinforcing. Show SHOW why love is always better.
I look at who gets elected state attorneys general and county sheriff in a lot of places, and it does not make me think directly electing the justice system will fix these problems
I think this is just end-running to the same problem. Presumably the AG and President would run on 1 ticket. Congress is a separately elected branch and can remove the president. They just don't care
Our state judges are elected and for decades the idea of switching to "merit selection" has come up regularly. A judge I know said about that, "Merit selection sounds great right up until the moment you start asking who decides who has merit."
Way I read the Constitution, the SCOTUS can be tweaked by Congress. Be a great court case for Gorush the Originalist to twist himself into an intellectual puzzle. Current Congress has abdicated their role for power.
No, the plan was that they wouldn’t be politicians depending on being popular. Having to be confirmed by the Senate was probably considered enough of a brake on a rogue president. We have a unique set of circumstances here where the Congress has given up all power and duties to a cult leader.
Texas elects its supreme court members and it only seems to helps the far-right freak system… it means you can demagogue a court seat, and it's a lot harder to respond to demagoguery with "well, you're good at your job" than with a president, since people understand what a judge does less clearly.
Turns out that a government where positions of power are elected doesn't work that great when people that run for election are either dumb, evil, rich, or a combination. How to ensure only well meaning and capable people run? Maybe much more limiting requirements?
Too many folks are focused on party titles (rep vs dem vs mag) and not on behaviors and strategy. That’s more valuable info than a focus on parties. There are a lot of blurred lines re party affiliation. Depravity is the culprit.
It would have to be a massive collaborative effort that centers the humanities and logic over capital and competition. That’s not to say we ignore STEM, either. The dual party system would also need to become defunct, as it not longer meets the needs of all citizens (did it ever?)
Yeah, I realized when Bush was president and I was coincidentally reading HLA Hart. Such an UH OH moment. But if I'd gone around screaming this to people then or during the Obama administration, or even when Trump was first elected--people would have called me crazy. I know this because they DID.
i hated bush with a fury and the trump came along and made him look like just a goofy lil guy. the failure of our protests to stop that war hurt and i couldn’t believe bush got a second term.
Yeah, that was one of my worst days in reaction to US politics—the day he won the second term…until Trump came along. After that, they were all bad days.
God, it was GRIM. What’s blowing my mind now is everything I thought ‘oh shit!’ about in the 2000s is actually HAPPENING now. I was doing ‘oh shit!’ about the Nazis and misogynists on reddit in like 2010. My husband was always trying to calm me down…now he’s like ‘oh, honey, I cannot reassure you.’
i recorded bush speeches on cassette and mixed them with noise from circuit bent toys and tape loops and i think i still have those cassettes somewhere. with an episode of art bell on the flip side 🤣
What was ‘exceptional’ about the USA —of course not the only place like this—is when it successfully put restraints on government for individuals, and had more open membership. The democracy part was always weaker, tho strengthened over time—but that was a main thing that caused a fascist reaction.
Some of it is deserved but the over expressed self adulation is unhealthy esp when combined with insularity leading to unhinged & aggressive degradation of norms - viz the post shame post truth eventuality of fascistic capture.
I wasn’t so much thinking about how to evaluate the USA from a distance but more how to stop bad things. Probably only been in striking distance of democracy for 65 years, tops. I don’t know of any real evidence for historical determinism or inevitability so I do not think we know what will happen.
Good. There's been a lot of people who have been in the habit of sanitizing the Bush Presidency because Trump is so bad. This is huge mistake because it lets Bush off the hook for all the terrible things he did.
So when money controls elections, is given the status of protected free speech by the gormless fnckwits of SCOTUS (When in hell is money "free?" - and I can answer that too!), the Center Left contests the election against everyone to the Right, and the Left has no voice at all.
Their votes do not change the fact that they are taxed and the wealthy get breaks and own the media.
Their votes cannot get them the government they want because they do not have enough money to be heard over the sound of millions, now billions, of dollars.
Measuring what? I went to some trouble to prove this for anyone who troubles themselves to read my book. It is, in fact, quite simple, and it has very little impact on the operation of MMT in the end, as it demands that the government controls and creates the money we use.
Hi there!
I'm curious—who exactly do we owe this $300+ trillion to?
And who's responsible for collecting it?
It's interesting to think about why we haven't seen any action on this yet. 😊
Consider that money is created as debt with interest, while interest is money that hasn't been created by someone else borrowing it into existence yet.
Consider that the creation of money has to be justified by the transfer of work into the national economy,
This was discussed in an after election forum with Democratic leadership. Stop going after business or coming off as anti business. And many other things. It would be great if the party followed many of the super common sense suggestions.
The system was set up as an Honor System, which actually does, or at least did, work when honorable people were heading it*. Once honor, truth, education, and stone cold facts were tossed out the window, this is how we got here.
*Hell, even Nixon stepped down for the good of the country!
The only way, in my opinion, is to have a mandate to consider the constitution a living document that must be reviewed and updated every 20 years through a constitutional congress. The members of the constitutional congress every 20 years cannot be current representatives, nor can they 1/
have been representatives in the previous 10 years. The constitutional congress mandate cannot be removed and there needs to be outside enforcement (like the UN) and consequences for those who are responsible for the congress if they do not complete the process. /end
That's a big part of why I'm an anarchist. The power held by a small group or even a single individual is the problem. And anarchy isn't "saying fuck it. There's no point in trying" rather it's saying that there is a way to prevent power being isolated to the top of a hierarchy.
I agree. Their only sense of loyalty is to money, and the new authoritarian regime that is being installed. They care about our democracy, only in so far as how they can dismantle it.
To keep our democracy intact, we must protect it from bad actors in the government, regardless of the branch of government. This is why we have checks and balances. Currently, we have a bad actor as president, a complicit majority in Congress, and unfair attacks on judges that rule against Trump.
It's always been an authoritarian constitution—it grants powers of coercion to a political class. It's bad that those powers are currently being monopolized, but the real problem is that they even exist for anybody to hold.
well, we, meaning white men were arrogant enough to believe we wouldn't fall victim to a constitutional crisis/dictatorship, that somehow we'd "be better..." As if Nixon scandal, & others weren't enough "warning shots." Forgetting that descendants of countries/govts that had these very same issues
I've thought this, too. You could probably make checks and balances more robust to a degree, but if nobody or almost nobody has the will to enforce them...
Oh god, I have been jumping up and down on that point forever. The system simply won't survive unless a substantial majority of the voters are willing to place democracy ahead of self-interest at critical moments.
And that won't happen without widespread misery. This country is reactionary and incapable of any positive action without mass suffering first. We will all steam to death in this frog pot while this is all being normalized unless the heat is raised rapidly to drive home what's happening.
I don't think it's on the voters. The DNC has even been squashing progressive Democrat incumbents who have popular support. Who we could even vote for is being limited by the party. They ran a Kennedy heir with Buttigieg policies against Ed Markey, a guy who has been popular and winning since 2013.
The "they" is the DNC who throw a lot of money and PR into challenging people like Markey all over the country. In Massachusetts, Markey won easily but other states had incumbents challenged by corporate-aligned Dems who got all the PR and money.
I'm not against primaries at all when the incumbent is unpopular. Like Joe Biden. I get that we didn't have time, but that's entirely on the DNC again for propping Biden up AGAIN instead of making him stick to one term. But they would have squashed progressives like in 2016 and 2020 anyway.
And that's just where I live. The last election was a desperate one for the party and the DNC poured money into challenging their own popular incumbents to put people more appealing to the center-right in the running, but nobody on the right wants a dem and no progressive wants their people replaced
The informal guardrails of liberal democracy are just as important as the words in constitutions, statutes, parliamentary procedures, and court rulings! Political culture has to remain healthy in order for a liberal democracy to function correctly
Comments
Australia does it and it's been noted by political scholars that the end result is much less polarization, and no campaigns rely on more/less voter turnout to succeed.
Which would make so much sense here, as a start. Tuesday doesn't work when people have to choose between keeping their job and voting (some employers will not care)
It's time to kick out the squatters, take it back, and clean up the mess.
We can do this. And we will.
Watts' book was published in 2018, well ahead of 1/6/21.
The Republicans have zero incentive to end the despot's rule. So you won't see them act solely or as a party. And I suspect Democrats don't have that power.
That needs to be addressed, and certainly won’t be under this administration.
I think the inherent risk of failure in any government system is our motivator to keep advocating for our values, lest they perish.
If members of Congress can't be challenged to duels because of mean tweets anymore.
Turns out, most of what people thought were rules were just requests.
Congress is currently in the hands of the GOP, who have been taken over by Trump/MAGA. Congress doesn't have the "power" if that majority is set on enabling MAGA despotism.
But the military is on board with this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Chafee
It’s why they hate public education. It’s not even that good in the US.
But still too good for their liking!
But everyone is going to blame the Democrats.
Find a way to let Republicans win with total and united Democrat opposition.
Then Dems need to go out and do town halls and talk shows reminding voters that Republicans did this.
This is all on Republicans and always has been.
A civilized society can’t afford billionaires, and can’t survive trillionaires.
Senate Republicans are, of course, useless authoritarian cultists.
The answer is you can't.
The bad faith actor now has a heckler's veto and can refuse to go forward.
Or, the bad faith actor can capture C&C in its entirety and launch at whim. <== But this is the point we are at.
But there might be accidental design. We might be so ingrained and integrated in the global community that between them and the 60 odd % of us can wrestle it back.
democracy than the US.
But I bet he had not considered the "what happens if a Russian spy is elected POTUS" loophole.
😐
Call your reps. Demonstrate. Boycott. Support others who are able to more active/public than you.
Cross the midterm bridge when you get to it - you gotta walk the road you're on first.
or a building
AND I think what's ALSO happening is people are cowards & waiting for a more adult-y adult that isn't coming. "The pilot might shoot me!" yes he might! AND it's your job & we are speeding towards immovable objects!
Mandatory guidelines for courts (schedules, appeal duration, sentencing) for this extreme category of action is one, but plausibly manipulated.
The only solution I've come up with are backwards facing "Spider-Man laws" as I call them...
Structure the system to be aggressive against them.
Apparently Congress isn’t needed,
So GOP’s power has been ceded,
To Dear Leader who’s proceeded,
To be a king. 3 branches defeated.
We also need to educate citizens like our lives depend on it, because, lo and behold, they do.
Hierarchy and aristocracy.
Oppress the poor basically.
MAKE THEM DO THE RIGHT THING.
And the people should be able to recall house and senate representatives.
…this would be a start
how do you enforce rules no one really cares about?
sounds like a defiant petulant child that is now in charge of the household and dictating to everyone else. maybe we need to have people who want to hold office prove they are competent adults with ethics not simplistic children who just don't care
“I called BOTH of my senators today.
And I think blah blah blah…”
If it wasn’t for the right-wing media ecosystem, and the normalization of Trump by MSM, he wouldn’t be president and there would be fewer right-wing extremists in Congress.
One third really, really want it. They didn't believe they'd be impacted but they wanted it enough to accept everything else.
Another third did not care enough to stop it. What they did not want was NOT enough to get them into a voting booth to stop it.
That would probably do it.
Perhaps the Judges' Association should be involved... or not.
Legally, that's not something i can explain.
Nah, but social scientists and people studying bureaucracies and control theories and media etc should ostensibly be looking into that, but only stem enriches ologarchs so 🤷🏽♂️
Consider the US approach to the meaning of words in laws.
Like ‘children’.
I see cases where a child “will be tried as an adult”.
But a child is not an adult.
If you have laws that make a difference between adults and children, but can just redefine’children, then 🤷🏻♂️
Fundamentally, the US, like the UK needs voting reform.
https://polls.votehub.com/
Madison wrote how a federal army could be kept in check by the militia, "a standing army would be opposed [by] militia.", "..forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition".
Clearly the current Congress is embracing an abdication of its power. But there are options for those of us who are not interested in a King Trump.
Or we just accept and learn Russian.
The rich folk are only willing to buy off/infiltrate so many parties. They're ultimately pretty cheap and lazy.
If our politicians weren't afraid of their own voters—the ones they've lied to for years—we wouldn't be in this situation.
And let's not let FOX News and other conservative media off the hook for similar failings.
"If our politicians were afraid of their own voters... we wouldn't be in this situation."
Where ?
We have supposedly put in stop gaps within our constitution for shit like this to not happen… Yet…
One thing that would really help is for these judges having to contend with trump’s lawyers making frivolous arguments to start filing ethics complaints. “It boggles my mind” is nice in a ruling, but not enough.
In a parliamentary system there is also the backstop of the head of state forcing elections. They probably loose power after, but...
They are actively complicit and corrupt.
https://bsky.app/profile/bastillesam.bsky.social/post/3lkqgzp2uqk2v
I do know there's a lot of folks who have no confidence in our government that seems filled with bad actors.
It's not the rules, it's the people who are either cowards or don't care whether their own country has democracy in name only. As long as they keep *their* jobs.
Elements of the system encourage or discourage citizen involvement.
https://bsky.app/profile/joocifer.bsky.social/post/3lgdirswnf22p
If this is their level of expertise, then the entire SSN database is likely already in the wild due to their criminal negligence.
https://bsky.app/profile/joocifer.bsky.social/post/3lkb5y3fkgk26
That 'channel' can be Fox news, or it can be considered everything their Facebook friends are feeding them, or what they hear on the radio in their car. But it's a different information bubble ecosystem.
https://youtu.be/2a8EcXk4KEM?si=cJa5jq0htbMgbWKh
But it’s pretty common that I read and disagree with their opinions, and reasonably common for me to think they got the facts wrong.
Couple this with intentional misinformation firehosed into our various social media platforms, & news organizations run as businesses, by/for the 1%!
Our 4th Estate has fallen! Live in a fairly well-educated, reasonably
affluent town without a local newspaper!!! Politics is local first!
What we are going thru is terrifying. We could lose the entire thing, our entire democracy.
And MAGATS think that's the desirable outcome.
W.T.F.??????
It could be that fixed elections remain, but a term could be cut into 2 or more if an unscheduled election was needed.
#RCV is crucial to escape the 'better of two evils' BS.
Under 'Reforms' I include Congress Member recalls to address party-switching and no-confidence:
We need to demand election reform for our voices to be heard.
Use them or lose them
"The Human Idea: Earth's Newest Ecosystem."
A fragile spirit, indeed.
Please shut all of the fcks up.
“I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing” Thomas Jefferson
America & the world is DIVERSE. We're unique yet contribute with EQUITY to be respectfully INCLUDED in society as human beings, NOT a label others put on us.
2. Department of Treasury underneath the Legislative branch instead of Executive branch.
3. U.S. Marshall service underneath Judicial branch instead of Executive Branch
4. President can be indicted for crimes while in office.
Proportional representation allows for several viable parties & this means more folks can be passionate about politics & at least one of those parties.
The US system has a bad and a (much) worse party, both captured by the richest.
A horizontally structured Society eschews privileges.
these laws are both overt and covert.
For the upper echelons voices are not more significant than the those of the voices of the lower echelons.
Systemic change is good since no system can regulate itself ad infinitum.
I can think of a few Governors I would follow into a fight.
https://bsky.app/profile/illithideractivity.bsky.social/post/3lim7ghypgs2u
This is how we get democracy back.
ack
I don't think it's that citizens don't care, it's that many are living as busy 'consumers' that feel helpless and don't know what to do. The same effect as abuse and oppression.
Your post also touches on the combined importance of resources like education and income inequality.
https://theintercept.com/2022/08/25/student-loans-debt-reagan/
Interests of those two groups are often not aligned, obscured by money and influence made exponentially worse by citizens united. Until that is gone, it’s hard for me to accept your statement. The well is poisoned.
All it takes is one or two key people to drop the ball. All that's needed to correct that is a mechanism for their removal.
But, point taken. It would only have taken 1 of a few, to do their job.
are schisters when the opportunity comes. We have never seen it so out in the open before. I think dems are in no way as bad as the MAGAs but who knows what can happen when one group gets away with everything that the dems could follow suit.
‘Will it be sufficient to mark, with precision, the boundaries of these departments, in the constitution of the government, and to trust to these parchment barriers against the encroaching spirit of power?"
Democracy dies in ignorance and apathy.
#SEXOFFENDER #CONVICT #Trump is HURTING EVERYONE-AND EVERY FAMILY!
#Grocery Prices RISING!
#Pensions and #401s FALLING!
#SocialSecurity and #Medicaid CUTS!
Good People Losing Jobs and Paychecks-For NO Good Reason!
NOBODY VOTED FOR ANY OF THIS!
🇺🇸 🗽
① Donald Trump 2017/Donald Trump 2025
② Mitch McConnell/John Thune
③ Paul Ryan/Mike Johnson
voters are dumb.
https://apnews.com/article/wisconsin-supreme-court-musk-trump-spending-4d95c11f76be495cc5acadaf9981a42b
Thanks @fripperskitter.bsky.social
https://bsky.app/profile/fripperskitter.bsky.social/post/3lk6wwosdzk2y
It is so open to corruption.
The root cause is baked in - exceptionalism is the accelerant !
250 yrs is a reasonable run 🤷🏼♂️.
Some of it is deserved but the over expressed self adulation is unhealthy esp when combined with insularity leading to unhinged & aggressive degradation of norms - viz the post shame post truth eventuality of fascistic capture.
Sad.
Think about the flow of money into politics. Big money, in particular.
Assign labels and characteristics.
Far Left - will tax wealth,
Center Left - might tax wealth,
Center Right, Far Right - won't tax wealth
Big money rejects the far left
People SEE that!
Their votes cannot get them the government they want because they do not have enough money to be heard over the sound of millions, now billions, of dollars.
Real money represents work done; limited by the laws of Thermodynamics.
OUR money now represents debt-with-interest; limited by our gullibility.
Our civilization is well over 300 Trillion dollars in the hole (not counting environmental debt),
When the laws are applied to money-
Ownership cannot make money (profit) -TANSTAAFL
Money cannot be a store of value - (Rust never sleeps)
These laws destroy nations that ignore them and would
Inherent in them is the requirement that governments must issue and control the amount of money that our societies are using.
https://youtu.be/TDL4c8fMODk
I'm curious—who exactly do we owe this $300+ trillion to?
And who's responsible for collecting it?
It's interesting to think about why we haven't seen any action on this yet. 😊
Consider that the creation of money has to be justified by the transfer of work into the national economy,
Problem goes away.
*Hell, even Nixon stepped down for the good of the country!
The GOP has invalidated these expectations!
GOP CRIME is the GOP NORM!