No Stupid Questions

I wouldn't say we're past the point of reform, we lack the political will in our elected representatives and the numbers to force the issue. It is possible, but very unlikely, that we could flip the house and senate with enough progressive politicians that reform would be possible. However the establishment democratic party is unwilling to take the necessary steps or support the needed candidates. Their aim seems to be to become more centrist than they already were and maintain the status quo.

Unfortunately though the reality of the situation is very complex, ambiguous, and inundated with misinformation. Most reforms in the federal government won't change the policies in red states, which are by far more egregious than what's happening in Washington. While it's likely true that there are no true red states, just gerrymandered purple states, there are still a sizable portion of the US population that want some or all of what's going on in red states and the federal government.

There doesn't seem to be enough political will among the left to carry out a revolution. Even if there was, there are almost as many right wingers (who are better armed, equipped, and trained) who would stand in opposition and turn the revolution into the second civil war.

Realistically while there are things that could be done to mitigate or stop the far right, not enough people seem to have the bravery, resources, and will to do what needs to be done.

Yes. We literally need to arrest all of these Israeli backed politicians and oligarchs for treason and crimes against humanity. We need to seize all of their assets to repair our data security and restore our economy. We will need a constitutional convention and we will need to fully reform our system to make sure this level of corruption is never possible again.

This is going to sound counter Intuitive to the Emotional need for revolution. But the best way to fight back is community networks and finding what is needed by marginalized groups and create programs that help those groups and organize around that action. Also making those networks distributed so it makes it harder for Authoritarians to squash but you can still navigate between the networks to get the resources you need.

A good example of this was the breakfast programs the black panthers started. If you read how the government tried to dismantle those programs and failed. You will see how effective they can be.

republicans have to lose incredibly bad. Like so bad they can't block a 3/4ths vote and even dick dem in name onlies can't join them to block a 2/3rds. If its a simple majority it will at best slow things down.

At the end of the day, it's what happens in the midterms that determine the next course of action. You can see every day that they're trying to rig them, and if they succeed in removing the only constitutional method to eject them from power, we're left with few other options.

No but you have bigger problems than the two you mentioned. There is so much injustice baked into the system that you will never get rid of it without some kind of revolution.

Maybe a velvet revolution is possible but I firmly believe it is impossible to fix the U.S. through gradual change.

Yes, sadly, we won't.

It really depends on the degree to which the Republican party destroys elections. If they don't, Democrats have a large majority in the Millennial/early Gen-Z age group, so we could be looking at a good 30 years of majority control. That's almost certainly the reason they're working so hard to corrupt elections, and we'll see to what degree we'll be able to fight it.

That is totally dependent on if they rig the upcoming midterms or not. If there is a legitimate election and the Republicans indeed loose big, then a long process of rebuilding can begin. They will have to immediately remove Trump from office IMO. …Having said that, there is no way that these fascist swine are going down that easy. They will either fix the elections, cancel them, or claim fraud and execute a total coup. This time, they will use the military.

This clusterfuck is ultimately the product of broken society. You won't fix the society by starting a revolution - you'll just replace one set of bad guys with worse ones.

I typically don't like US politics because it's all shitting on somebody's head but this is an acceptable question because it can be interpreted in a structural way. Like the river carries water, in an orderly fashion, even though each drop moves chaotically and by common assumption doesn't even have consciousness, so society moves forward, even though no single person has a plan.

I think that in some sense of the word, things are gonna be ok because life has always found a way, one way or another, and this won't be different. The question is just what local bubble is gonna make it and what not. About the US politics: I think that governments ultimately derive their power from being useful to society. Just like every major invasion of other countries has failed in decades, so has no tyrannical regime existed forever. There's always some tradeoff between the ruler being necessary and annoying. Even the "very bad people" (according to newspapers) such as dictators in the third world have a surprising amount of support from the local population because they perform some role, such as holding society together and defending against a (real or imagined) external threat. I think that it's easy to give in to doomerism, because people are attracted to bad thoughts like the mosquito is attracted to fire, but ultimately the world is on a path of development, and bad rulers can only rule as long as their existence is considered practical. Which won't be forever.

Embrace the doom.