Preferences

energywut parent
Quickly? This has been the path we have been on for at least 30 years, probably longer. Plenty of folks have been calling this out for longer.

When you have two parties in control, and they are both staunchly pro-capital, anti-worker parties, one party will push conservative and the other will ensure "nothing fundamentally changes".

Obama, Biden, Bush, and Clinton all had parts to play in empowering the executive, normalizing political violence, demonizing and silencing the left (the actual left -- socialists, workers parties, anarchists, etc.), and ramping up the militarization of the police.

This isn't some sudden moment, it might be the first time it's affected people you know, but this has been happening for awhile now.


Herring
I think it's actually kind of a miracle it didn't happen earlier. This country has been all about getting rich since slavery. Concentration of economic power generally leads to concentration of political power (ie non-democracy). There are tons of pathways, eg lobbying, campaign finance, media ownership, threat of capital flight, regulatory capture, to name a few.
boroboro4
It didn’t happen earlier because before gilded age the US (among whites..) was actually quite good with equality, and then every time we were getting close the opposite force was taking over: once in the beginning of 20s century with worker rights / antitrust and once in 1930s with FDRs New Deal. Interestingly both times things were getting quite good afterwards for the people.

Not sure it’s gonna happen time though.

energywut OP
I think too many people are too enamored with their "team" to really dig into the policy proposals of presidents and senators. Like, for so many people being a Democrat is purely about being Not A Republican (or vice versa).

I want more people out here who are willing to vote (or withold their vote) for a candidate based on the policy positions. This "Vote Blue No Matter Who" (or whatever the Republican equivalent is) mindset leads to candidates who don't have to hold coherent positions or perform their duties. They simply need to not be the other guy.

While being "not the other guy" they will get courted by capital interests, because they need that money to run their campaigns. It's really not hard to connect the dots between these politicians and the donors who buy them and mysteriously get policies that make regulatory capture and capital concentration easier. It's not even conspiratorial -- it's pretty much out in the open these days.

I'm so tired of hearing, "But not the democrats" or "but not the republicans" -- my friends, stop treating the people you vote for like part of your identity. Expect more from the people who represent you, be harshly critical of your own party to help it grow.

Don't forget, it's not unique to the US either.

In 1985, France launched a terrorist attack against a protest in New Zealand.

This item has no comments currently.