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"Bought out by corporate interests" is a completely accurate assessment of the American electoral system. It's honestly quite alienating reading all of these co

"Bought out by corporate interests" is a completely accurate assessment of the American electoral system. It's honestly quite alienating reading all of these completely delusional comments. Your vote is at the very least supposed to be proportionally significant to the general population. We don't even have that. We are bombarded with corporate propaganda every fucking day. A senator from Wyoming has just as much of a vote as California. This notion that we live in a democracy or anything close to that is asinine. The system is not tethered to the will of the people in any sense of the word. It's an oligarchy.

bushbaba 2y ago
> Your vote is at the very least supposed to be proportionally significant to the general population that's not true in the US, a republic not a direct democracy. Never has been.
- farts_mckensy 2y ago
  Ah, blind deference to the status quo. You got me on that one.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > blind deference to the status quo Because unchecked corporate interests / you don't vote for the President but for electors are hot takes? (Also, "your vote is at the very least supposed to be proportionally significant to the general population" doesn't technically make sense. I think I know what you're getting at. But even ignoring the political structure and just focussing on voting, you're assuming by statement values for parameters which lie on a spectrum.)
    - farts_mckensy 2y ago
      You're trying to trip me up on technicalities that are completely immaterial to my point. Blind deference to the status quo illustrates poor critical thinking skills.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> notion that we live in a democracy or anything close to that is asinine. The system is not tethered to the will of the people in any sense of the word. It's an oligarchy Pure democracy doesn't work. (More accurately: election fetishisation doesn't work. It tears itself apart in manufactured partisanship.) We live in a republic. The Congress is democratically elected. The President is meant to embody the strengths of monarchy. The Supreme Court represents the oligarchy. This is civics 101, succinctly summarised in the Federalist Papers. > senator from Wyoming has just as much of a vote as California I vote in Wyoming. We're not the oligarchy. We're not even a swing state. You're complaining about, broadly, the Electoral College (and our system of apportionment). That's orthogonal to that of corporate interests. If anything, the fact that each of my resresentatives has fewer people they're accountable to makes them harder to buy off.
- farts_mckensy 2y ago
  You sound like a religious fundamentalist. Civics 101 is blindly deferring to the architects of a system whereby only rich, white property owners could vote? Look, however you rationalize it in your head, power is highly concentrated in the US. Unless you are a member of the ruling class, being in favor of this basically amounts to Stockholm Syndrome.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > sound like a religious fundamentalist Wat. > Civics 101 is blindly deferring to the architects of a system whereby only rich, white property owners could vote No, it's understanding the tradeoffs systems of governments make in erecting the systems that they do. Have you read the Federalist Papers? If not, I suggest starting there. It's more interesting than railing against the woke mind virus or corporations. > however you rationalize it in your head, power is highly concentrated in the US It's not consistently concentrated. And even then, it's not that concentrated. I've managed, as a rando, to get language put into multiple state and twice federal bills because I was the only person in my district who called in on a low-priority process. Nihilism in American politics is often just cover for civic laziness.

bushbaba 2y ago

> Your vote is at the very least supposed to be proportionally significant to the general population that's not true in the US, a republic not a direct democracy. Never has been.

farts_mckensy 2y ago
Ah, blind deference to the status quo. You got me on that one.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > blind deference to the status quo Because unchecked corporate interests / you don't vote for the President but for electors are hot takes? (Also, "your vote is at the very least supposed to be proportionally significant to the general population" doesn't technically make sense. I think I know what you're getting at. But even ignoring the political structure and just focussing on voting, you're assuming by statement values for parameters which lie on a spectrum.)
  - farts_mckensy 2y ago
    You're trying to trip me up on technicalities that are completely immaterial to my point. Blind deference to the status quo illustrates poor critical thinking skills.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> notion that we live in a democracy or anything close to that is asinine. The system is not tethered to the will of the people in any sense of the word. It's an oligarchy Pure democracy doesn't work. (More accurately: election fetishisation doesn't work. It tears itself apart in manufactured partisanship.) We live in a republic. The Congress is democratically elected. The President is meant to embody the strengths of monarchy. The Supreme Court represents the oligarchy. This is civics 101, succinctly summarised in the Federalist Papers. > senator from Wyoming has just as much of a vote as California I vote in Wyoming. We're not the oligarchy. We're not even a swing state. You're complaining about, broadly, the Electoral College (and our system of apportionment). That's orthogonal to that of corporate interests. If anything, the fact that each of my resresentatives has fewer people they're accountable to makes them harder to buy off.

farts_mckensy 2y ago
You sound like a religious fundamentalist. Civics 101 is blindly deferring to the architects of a system whereby only rich, white property owners could vote? Look, however you rationalize it in your head, power is highly concentrated in the US. Unless you are a member of the ruling class, being in favor of this basically amounts to Stockholm Syndrome.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > sound like a religious fundamentalist Wat. > Civics 101 is blindly deferring to the architects of a system whereby only rich, white property owners could vote No, it's understanding the tradeoffs systems of governments make in erecting the systems that they do. Have you read the Federalist Papers? If not, I suggest starting there. It's more interesting than railing against the woke mind virus or corporations. > however you rationalize it in your head, power is highly concentrated in the US It's not consistently concentrated. And even then, it's not that concentrated. I've managed, as a rando, to get language put into multiple state and twice federal bills because I was the only person in my district who called in on a low-priority process. Nihilism in American politics is often just cover for civic laziness.