What is your line in the sand?
Edit: thank you all for your responses. I think it’s important as an American we take your view points seriously. I think of a North Korean living inside of North Korea. They don’t really know how bad it is because that is all hidden from them and they’ve never had anything else. As things get worse for Americans it’s important to have your voices because we will become more and more isolated.
Even the guy who said, “lol.” Some people need that sort of sobering reaction.
Absolutely not. When laws don’t apply to the president, the jig is up. Trump clearly plans to be in power forever. Either there won’t be elections or they’ll be rigged.
all those images of venezualen immigrants … being handled like the absolute worst possible being… its crazy
Not since after I saw this graph:
From this paper:
This was published in 2014, back when Obama was in office.
The institutions are completely captured. Yes, even the ones you thought were on your side all this time.
Average citizens banding together into interest groups is a pretty common way to get things passed, and this chart agrees.
That is not what the paper means by “interest groups”.
I am a bit too dumb to understand that graph and asked ai for an explanation. It helped me, maybe it also helps others:
This graph comes from a study by Gilens and Page that examines how different groups influence U.S. policy decisions. It has three separate charts, each showing how policy adoption (whether a policy is enacted) relates to the preferences of different groups:
1. Average Citizens’ Preferences (top chart)
2. Economic Elites’ Preferences (middle chart)
3. Interest Group Alignments (bottom chart)
Breaking It Down:
• X-axis:
• In the first two graphs, it represents how much each group supports a policy (from 0% to 100%).
• In the third graph (Interest Groups), the x-axis shows alignment, with negative values meaning opposition and positive values meaning support.
• Y-axis:
• The left y-axis (dark line) shows the predicted probability of a policy being adopted.
• The right y-axis (gray bars) shows how often different levels of support occur in the data (percentage of cases).
Key Takeaways & Surprises:
1. The top chart (Average Citizens) is nearly a flat line.
• This means that whether the general public strongly supports or opposes a policy has little impact on whether it gets adopted.
2. The middle chart (Economic Elites) has a rising curve.
• This suggests that policies supported by the wealthy have a much higher chance of being adopted.
3. The bottom chart (Interest Groups) also shows a strong upward trend.
• The more interest groups align in favor of a policy, the more likely it is to be adopted.
Big Picture:
This graph suggests that the opinions of average citizens have little to no effect on policy decisions, while economic elites and interest groups have significant influence. This challenges the idea that the U.S. operates as a true democracy where the will of the majority decides policy.
Never have, they are ruled by their uniparty and indeed they can’t see outside their box.
I am probably that lol guy.It’s what they call a “flawed democracy” now. It’s not at the point where thousands of people simply disappear and every aspect of political life is dictated by one party’s leadership.
But it’s sliding downward.Nope Trump proved yet again the US is a Russian puppet today earlier in the week Ukraine destroyed a huge Russian Oil plant. Now a few days later Trump is giving them a Ceasefire against energy targets which Putin supposedly broke just a mere 3 hours later.
If anything this proves two things Ukraine really hurt them with that attack and Trump is again proving he’s Putins lapdog and acting outright against Ukraine and Europe.
Actually saw some combat footage of that Ukraine attack and it looked almost like a nuke, from what I remember it’s a 1000km ranged missile called Neptune.
Nope. I see it as an autocracy run by an elite oligarchy.
Sure, though the developments are worrying. If Donald gets a third term, I will consider USA an autocracy.
In some aspects, but no more than china. (spaniard here)
No and it hasn’t been for a long time. As long as you can buy influence via lobbying then then playing field is not level.
The difference this time is they are not trying to hide it anymore
There have been so many crossroads to fix the problems with US Democracy. We had removed money from politics for like seven years. We have states agreeing to give EC votes to majority winners. We had opportunities to expand the house and senate, and the SCOTUS. We could be taxing the rich right now but instead we collectively chose to let Republicans write the tax laws right as their old ones expired.
It’s the only world power that even comes close to fair elections and outcomes but we never choose to improve it.
What I lack faith in isn’t the democracy, but I lack faith in our people for their choices. We’re truly outnumbered by ignorant morons. Even with a perfect democracy, there is nowhere to go but down in this scenario.
Would be nice to know what part of America you mean by that. It is a pretty big continent you know? Argentinians, Mexicans, Brasilians and so on are all part of America.
Buuuut I’m gonna go ahead and assume you are asking about the UNITED STATES country, right?
Yes it is a Democracy. Not perfect, but then again which one is?
The Americas is what you mean, vs America, which implies the US. If you want to include Canada and Mexico, you say “North America”. It’s not difficult.
I’ve been all over the world, and no one has ever been confused when I say I’m from America. This push to make it seem like it’s confusing is ridiculous.
I always find this so pedantic, yes, America is the continent but it’s also the name of the country, just like you probably say Argentina, Mexico or Brazil for the countries you mentioned instead of Argentinian Republic, United States of Mexico, or Federative Republic of Brazil. By that same token when you said United States I could have assumed you were talking about Mexico, heck until very recently in history Brazil was also named United States of Brazil so if I or you were old I could also asume Brazil. But I know what you meant by US and you know what he meant by America, stop being pedantic.
Colloquially, internationally, when people say America, I don’t think of them referring to anywhere but the US. I’m not about making things US centric either, just saying.
I never considered it a democracy. It’s one-party system with two parties, what can be democratic about it? Smoke and mirrors.
Nope, it’s an oligarchy pretending it’s a democracy.
Not for quite some time now. Not since I learned about the electoral college.
When was the US the last time a democracy?
You can vote democrats or republicans, which mostly get bankrolled by the same rich assholes. As a normal citizen of the US you have almost no influence at politics at all, because the media is controlled by rich people, the biggest internet platforms are controlled by rich people, elections are paid for by rich people, …
The current situation is not a spontaneous, miraculous, magical result of Trump and his gang, it was years in the making by lobby groups, influential/rich/powerful people and neo liberal brainwashing of the masses.
Same holds true for most other western so called democracies.
