this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2025
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"But over time, the executive branch grew exceedingly powerful. Two world wars emphasized the president’s commander in chief role and removed constraints on its power. By the second half of the 20th century, the republic was routinely fighting wars without its legislative branch, Congress, declaring war, as the Constitution required. With Congress often paralyzed by political conflict, presidents increasingly governed by edicts."

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[–] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 4 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Name one year that the US was a democracy.

[–] ToastedPlanet@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

2024 when fascists won a fair and free election. Our democracy was never perfect, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a democracy.

Insisting America wasn't a democracy isn't clever analysis. It's factually wrong and it's not even an effective narrative to fight fascists.

[–] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

It wasn't fair or free. What part of that can't you see?

If we fix the democracy, they never would have taken power. We had like 8 parties running, and only 2 very similar parties got the majority of the votes. That's not because people wanted to vote for them, but because progressives are legally denied access and violence was used against them when they tried to attend the debates.

That's neither fair nor free. Its an illusion of choice where the only options support the status quo of oligarchy

It wasn’t fair or free. What part of that can’t you see?

This is a baseless assertion. Our elections have been self-evidently fair and free so far, including the recent Wisconsin and Florida special elections. Musk tried to buy the Wisconsin election and failed to get the candidates he wanted. We'll see what happens with the North Carolina 2024 Supreme Court election, but even that is an attempt to overturn the election results publicly not a secret rigging of the election. If they succeed that makes future fair and free elections even less likely than they are now.

If we fix the democracy,

We also need to people to reject neoliberalism and fascism and accept socialism. Or else we will eventually have to deal with a fascist movement that is so large it is a majority of the population.

We had like 8 parties running, and only 2 very similar parties got the majority of the votes.

We live in a two-party system which is what our first-past-the-post systems trend towards, so that it isn't surprising.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

but because progressives are legally denied access

Bernie wasn't legally denied access. He was allowed to run when he wanted to run. The courts regrettably ruled that political parties are private organizations and can run their elections however they want despite the inherent public interest in there being a formal standardized process that political parties should be legally mandated to honor. Especially since the Republicans and Democrats are the only serious vehicles for political platforms in the US.

and violence was used against them when they tried to attend the debates.

This is conspiracism.

That’s neither fair nor free. Its an illusion of choice where the only options support the status quo of oligarchy

The choice between neoliberalism and fascism was a real choice. With neoliberalism we prolong our democracy with the hopes of co-opting the Democratic party with socialist and progressive candidates. With fascism we get progressively efficient death camps until society collapses or everyone is dead. It's worth going into a bit more detail with the fascism choice since that's what we have gone with. In addition to showing the consequences that further establish this was a meaningful choice, it's important to drive home how terrible this choice was.

Now that we are a christo-fascist techno-feudalist dictatorship our ability to change society depends on the failure of that fascist dictatorship. This is not accelerationism, but anti-fascism. The first step to making things better is getting rid of the fascist dictatorship. The fascist dictatorship is both actively making things worse while also blocking attempts to making things better. So if we want to make things better then the fascist dictatorship needs to go.

When it comes to getting rid of the fascist dictatorship, societal collapse, or at least political collapse, is more likely but who knows how long that will take. It's also not clear if it will be caused by internal or external factors. External factors being a foreign military or economic policies aimed at the US. It will probably be more likely be internal factors given the size and capabilities of our military and our leading and foundational role in the modern world economy we created after WWII.

Internal factors could include a whole host of causes. Like disease or famine. Fascist incompetence will probably be what drives whatever the ultimate cause is. We might get infighting when Trump dies of old age or is too debilitated to do anything more than be a figure head. It could also be a revolution that is either peaceful or violent. The peaceful revolution being the statistically more likely to succeed of the two.

It seems like any political violence will result in a civil war at this point. Most of the users on lemmy never spare any thought for the backlash political violence would cause if the MAGA movement had a martyr to justify atrocities. Considering that, it seems unlikely that those advocating for political violence are prepared or even care to fight a protracted and bloody civil war.

None of these possibilities would even be on the table for discussion let alone likely in the immediate term if we had gone with neoliberaism for four more years. We are at the point where we need some kind of a revolution to stop death camps here at home. Our failure to stop a fascist movement that wants to kill the most vulnerable groups of people was a choice. And a clear choice at that.

[–] suite403@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

You're being downvoted but you're not far off. Women and minorities couldn't vote for a very long time. We had slaves and still do through incarceration. It's only been in the last few decades that we were closest to be what we claimed to be, and yet still quite a ways off. And that progress was greeted with the system coming down on us attempting to "fix" what we had broken by moving towards true freedom for all.

[–] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 5 points 1 day ago

If over half of the population is unhappy with the election results after an election takes place, I think its clear you're not living in a democracy.

I think a Parliament and rank choice voting are prerequisites to democracy. The only reason the US doesn't have these things is to ensure that the power remains in the hands of the plutocrats