One is oligarchy, one is fascist. American democracy is arguably dead long ago.
I get where you’re coming from but wanting an option other than corporate politicians is very different from willingly electing your last president as a childish incompetent dictator.
Voting for Trump is a statement by the many that that since democracy isn’t working, we might as well drop the pretense and go full autocratic. We’ve seen the death of democracy several times because greed always reigns.
The Germans thought the same when they elected Nazi party officials in the early 30s. The problem is voting for trump is not a protest; it’s ushering in a bona fide fascist dictatorship.
If you want to make a statement, vote for RFK or something, not someone openly calling for executions, genocide, and the end of democracy. That’s not a statement, that’s voting to ensure you never get to vote again.
It’s a bit too reductive to turn the statement “American democracy has been dead a long time” to “we want more candidate options”.
The real problem isn’t some rhetorical or presentation problem, it’s that we have hard data that public opinion has actually no influence on laws. Only people within the oligarchy (e.g those with massive amounts of capital) influence the law. That’s not democracy, even if you present it as such by having people tick a box every 2/4 years.
To have a real democracy you need voting in ways that actually impacts people’s day to day lives. By far the most influential version of this would be democracy in the workplace, but we don’t have that, we have authoritarian dictatorships in the workplace. It’s still legal to rent people with capital, it’s legal to own forms of private, non-personal property (e.g factories), and as long as we have rules like these, organizations will be led by authoritarian capital, and not by grassroots democracy.
I mean… There is. But, Trump’s side represents a much more imminent and intentional threat.
I think you’ve missed a few key conversations. When people say “both sides are bad” they’re equating Biden’s neoliberalism with Trump’s fascism, as if they are equal in their destructive power. This article is clearing the air. Biden, for all of his faults, is far and away the least existential political threat to the USA.
Then the DNC better primary Biden and get someone in there thats not taking us further into war, and getting Palestinians slaughtered by the 10 of thousands.
I agree with you on the Palestine comment, however, that has nothing to do with the topic at hand. How would DNC primarying Biden in any way have an impact on how media and political parties are framing readily available and verifiable facts as debatable political points?
If they weren’t going to let Bernie work unmolested, they’re not going to primary Biden.
Also: it doesn’t matter who sits in the oval office both red and blue are ridiculously committed in supporting the IDF’s staggering list of warcrimes.
What sucks is I’m sure no conservative reads Vanity Fair.
If Donald Trump didn’t want to be removed from state ballots he shouldn’t have incited a violent insurrection when he lost last time.
This was an easily avoidable outcome.
It’s regulated democracy.
It turns out that if you don’t regulate things to some extent, humans exploit them. Who would’ve thought huh?
Plus, did you forget what the insurrection was about? You don’t get much more undemocratic than trying to flatout deny the results of the democratic process.
In one case you have a democracy with defenses against corruption (imperfect but still present), in the other case you have something that is just flatout not democracy in any definition of the word.
Is a democracy where I can’t vote for a literal infant still a democracy or is it no democracy because I can’t choose a baby to run the country? Like if I wanna vote for a 2 year old and they say no, that means it’s not a democracy anymore?
it never was a simple democracy or he never would have won an election with fewer votes
The Senate is not democracy. Within the Senate, the smallest state is equal to the largest state. Wyoming is equal to California.
The Bill of Rights is not democratic. The Bill of Rights restricts voters from inflicting their populist will on a minority that does not share their beliefs.
The judicial branch is the least “democratic” concept within the Constitution. The judicial branch grants overwhelming authority to a small, unelected group, and makes that group responsible for dealing with all matters related to the accused. We don’t get to vote on whether to spare the accused, or feed them into a woodchipper; that power has been stripped from the people, and is thus undemocratically wielded.
Section 3 of the 14th amendment is not “Democratic” in the same way that the Senate, Bill of Rights, and Judiciary are not “Democratic”. It is constitutionally essential for the same reasons that the Senate, Bill of Rights, and the Judicial Branch are essential.
You can still write in his name on the ballot. Nobody is going to arrest you for that. Ridicule you, sure, but not arrest you.
You’re still allowed to do it, they just won’t count votes for anyone not eligible
Why exactly do you want to vote for a treasonous insurrectionist? Why should such a person be allowed to run?
Do you really think it’s undemocratic to protect democracy from someone approaching fascism?
I dont. I dont like trump. I hope he gets convicted for his crimes. But so far he hasnt. People are direly minimizing how dangerous a precedent it is to bar a frontrunner candidate from an election. That is millions of Americans who are being told they cant vote for who they want to, by the opposition party. Later on Trump will preach to them about democracy being taken away from them, and theyll have quite the reason to believe him. This wont go well.
