In the last 5 years alone, the 200 most politically active companies in the U.S. spent $5.8 billion influencing our government with lobbying and campaign contributions.
Those same companies got $4.4 trillion in taxpayer support — earning a return of 750 times their investment.
An no one bats an eye... you should be rioting in the streets
There was s study about this year's ago. They compared popularity of bills and how they were passed and there was no difference; Congress just did what they want. I suspect if your redid the study to compare bills passed to corporate interests you'd get much more revealing results.
Joining/starting unions and mass strikes would be much faster if you are able. Sure, vote too, but the premise of this post specifically says they don't care what you think. Make them care.
Sarah Palin was supposed to bring in the party's fringes for McCain in his 2008 bid. She was considered a nutter then.
One Obama later, and suddenly McCain was either the scum of the earth or the best the GOP has to offer, depending on who you ask, and those groups of people flipped in that time. Meanwhile Palin became a mascot.
Palin wasn't even invited to his funeral. Didn't speak to him one time in the year he was sick.
For that first part to work we must vote for better candidates at the lower level and stop voting for the media selected consensus candidate in primaries.
Otherwise we're just disengaging from the system and letting two people pass the presidency back and forth.
I don't think people realize how much graft is built into the system.
Bribery is near impossible to prove. (Thanks SCOTUS)
You can effectively keep left over campaign funds.
Insider trading does not apply to you.
Your paycheck is expected to cover 2 offices, staff at each, 2 homes, frequent travel between them, and your political advisors.
Fundraising is organized by the party, stay on their good side and you get help and resources to raise money. Introduced to the right people, etc. Get on the wrong side and get cut off.
It's no wonder our elected representatives treat small donations like mana from heaven, we're effectively paying them. And they treat the capitol building like a stock trading room because that's their real retirement fund, their key to independence from the party.
They don't like it if you tell them that you hope their family dies in a bloody revolution because they are were too cowardly to vote to convict Trump, though.
Is this a reference to some news article or did you get to have a chat with the FBI or something? I respect and support your First Amendment rights if it was the latter.
That would be nice in the future. Unfortunately, the modern Web is not even in the ballpark of being secure enough for something like that (and it's trending worse, not better).
I'm in the US, and I can assure you the amount of effort that would go into breaking that system would be 1000+ fold.
Here's the thing.. your computer/phone, just to run programs, is sitting on somewhere around 40-50 million lines of code in the operating system. It's got another 20-30 million for all the supporting user space libraries. People want to vote from any device, and operating systems have become walled gardens. Now we need to interact with browsers. That's another 30 million lines. You know how many bugs I need to find to compromise a system? 1. It's not necessarily a skill issue. It's an attack surface issue.
And this is assuming the bug was an accident. There are much more insidious vulnerabilities out there (see the recent exploit found in xz). Along that same vein, there could be exploit generators in the compilers (that's 15 million lines) that build all these systems.
We won't have online voting until we fundamentally change how we compute. I don't see that happening any time in the near future. None of these corporations are going to be breaking down their walls anytime soon.
I understand that this is a doomer sub but man. When you manage to get away from all this social media bullshit for a while then try to poke your head in you realize how relentlessly negative it is at all times, because nobody wants to actually do anything about anything, including go the fuck outside and forget about it for a bit, and everyone with any ambitions of sanity leaves.
Could we start discussing credible strategies to reverse this situation, or at least improve that number somehow? Absolutely the fuck not, never, ever ever. The shit is very literally crazy, I don't know what I was trying to expect.
But this post is so much like the other posts on the rest of the site it took me a minute to notice where I was. Might as well stop acting like this is just one community, it's everything.
Ok, so now what? You're going to shit on people for being depressed about the state of the world and feeling powerless because of how powerless they are?
If you want people to engage in solutions I'd recommend not belittling them for succumbing to apathy in the face of overwhelming opposition.
Could we start discussing credible strategies to reverse this situation, or at least improve that number somehow?
I say this constantly, and everyone nods along happily when I say it, but almost nobody does it. What is it? It's getting involved in your local politics.
The federal government, the US congress and senate and all the executive branch.... they're all supported and propped up by powerful institutions within the states that got powerful because nobody paid it any attention and still don't. People get elected to represent us who run without opposition and then we wonder why nothing seems to change.
If you get involved with knowing who in your neighborhood, your school district, your city, your county and your state represent you, and then challenging that representation in any way you can, from actually running all the way to just getting on those horrible neighborhood forums and holding yard-sales to get to know your neighbors.
GET TO KNOW YOUR NEIGHBORS. Jesus, this country is terrible about this one huge thing that could change everything, which is reforming communities. We scream and cry how bad the world is and make ZERO effort to make it better by forming support systems within neighborhoods. I mean fuck, most suburban neighborhoods have nothing else to do, might as well have some bake sales and yard sales and jogging groups and other things to help get to know each other, right? Or has all our cynicism completely overshadowed any possible chance of ever forming friendly communities in the US?
I move every year because my rent keeps going up and I can't afford to stay. In some places ive been they offer a discount the first year then it goes up to the "normal rate".
Sorry to my MAGA neighbor that broke my headlight, I can't afford to stay and educate you.
As long as there is money to be made in politics the common man will be trodden upon. Good luck getting the people making all the money to change the laws.
Get involved with Represent.Us, the site that was linked to.
They have a pretty good strategy, and they have been making progress.
Governance is discouraging because it’s complex. And when things are complex, it’s difficult to see progress and it’s easy to predict that there will be problems.
It’s also difficult (and unrewarding) to have serious conversations about this stuff on social media.
The posts get too long, with no satisfying simplistic conclusion, and even if you make an incredible magnum opus of a post that acknowledges enough complexity to be realistic while also being short and snappy enough to catch people’s attention… it drops off of the trending posts algorithm after a day.
Expand the house. Drop the ratio to something much closer to the original one, (1 representative for 30,000 people). It's theorized that a ratio around 1:100,000 is low enough to provide more accountability. It would mean a house around 3600 representatives but they'd be very responsible to their local communities. And we could institute a system where only senior members are in D.C. with others joining them only for very sensitive meetings that couldn't be held using the secure intranet the military has.
This expansion would obliterate party control and lobbying. There's just too many representatives at that point and too many seats to fund. The price tag of campaigning would drop precipitously, making elections intensely local again.
I did, and the primary to. Then the people who I voted alongside of talked massive shit about me because I didn't smile hard enough while voting for "the most pro-labor president".
Then they didn't do anything to fix the First Past the Post voting system and the spoiler effect that comes along side it. Despite lecturing people over and over about its mathematical flaws whenever anyone mentioned voting outside the two party system.
I will vote for your blue conservatives, but don't try to fool me that I am represented with things as they are.
I like party for socialism and liberation. If they don’t have a candidate listed on your states ballot but they’re running one you can write em in.
What kind of politics do you have? I suggested psl because they’re running on a platform of Palestinian statehood and an end to weapons shipments to Israel and those issues seem to be what’s disgusting people with the democrats and republicans this go around, but what else motivates you?
every ballot is tallied. if one of the parties wants to pick up votes in your district they look at what people voted for in the past and try to either adopt that platform or clearly tell people they already have that platform.
if, as the OP states, our elected representatives don't actually represent us, the first step is to say in a way that cannot be denied or covered up what positions they would need to take up in order to represent us.
if one of the parties wants to pick up votes in your district they look at what people voted for in the past and try to either adopt that platform
Maybe, but not the way you think.
If the democratic party gave a fuck about what their party thinks they would have moved further left to scoop up the Bernie supporters. Instead they keep moving right.
they keep doing that because people keep voting for them. stop voting for them.
if all the people begging the democrats to move "left" always vote for them anyway, why would the party ever meet their demands when it could pick up more support by moving "right" and courting the opposition's base?
stop supporting parties that don't align with your values and politics!
I live in a rural area and all options are basically the same. The only real difference is Republicans usually going hard on the maga shit. Policy wise there's not a ton of difference. Sometimes we'll get a libertarian.
if you see an option with a write in part, write in someone instead of casting a vote for a candidate you don't like.
if there's not an option to write in your choice, don't fill that part out.
someone else commented and talked about being in a place where everything is pretty much dominated by the republican political machine. in those cases it might be better to focus on mutual aid and working in local county and town meetings instead of attaching yourself to a party.
if you've got the time, putting the screws to someone in a county board of commissioners meeting over spending a bunch of money on the local cops riot gear that they never use instead of straightening up peoples screwy culverts is a sure win.
I wouldn't even know where to begin. Between my job and everything else I have going on I don't have the free time or mental energy for that level of political activism.
me neither anymore tbh, especially when meetings are scheduled around someone elses time and i gotta take off work or whatever to make em.
if you really feel left out, just don't vote for people that don't align with you no matter who else is on the ticket and help out the people around you when you can.
sometimes the best activism we can do is just taking care of each other!
Third parties really don't matter. You have one vote which is against the guy who will do his part for Project 2025 (end democracy -- and Democrats -- and install a one-party autocratic state, who doesn't even have to pretend to care what you think). And you do that by voting for the other popular guy, the Democrat.
If you vote for a third party or you don't vote, then you do nothing to stop the rise of autocracy. Obviously, a vote for the Republican is a vote to accelerate the one-party autocracy process. So those are your options.
Third parties only act as spoilers in FPTP elections, and the campaign machines for both major parties regard and will regard them as such.
Ross Perot ran for President as an independent as a third party candidate getting 18% of the vote and none of the EC, and is the record holder for the largest share by a third-party presidential candidate.
It’s wild that you chose Perot as your example when he’s generally accepted as having not been a spoiler and his anti-nafta platform dragged it kicking and screaming into daylight for everyone to see.
If anything, Perot ‘92 was a great example of a non spoiler third party forcing both major parties to actually be held accountable for their policies.
When both parties don’t represent you, vote for one that does!
Okay, if you don't care which of the two guys gets elected (Democrat or Republican) then sure, vote for the third party of your choice. That said, we don't know if Perot was a successful spoiler. If Perot pulled (approximately) two GOP voters for every one Democrat, then yes, he was a successful spoiler (the math is even more sophisticates, since this would have to be calculated for each swing state and then summed up) but we don't know.
But in 2024, every Republican voted into office advances the effort towards turning the US into a one party autocracy. This means you have to vote tactically based on if you want that process sped up, slowed down or don't care. Unless you're close enough to a billionaire to get the fuck out of dodge (e.g. leave the US for extended leave) then a Trump presidency is going to lead to a lot of Trumpgrets, and a risky venture through the gravity well of a purge and holocaust.
I can't speak for you guys, but I don't want to risk dying in a concentration camp, and I can't emphasize enough how much that is totally not hyperbole.
We do know if Perot functioned as a spoiler. We know because after hw bush lost a bunch of people threw around the spoiler accusation and that prompted several groups to analyze the results in depth as you said would be necessary over the next decade.
It turns out that Perot did have more pull amongst conservative voters but the electoral college effect was only to reduce Clinton’s margin of victory.
Which sounds crazy unless you grew up in an area that was filled with conservative voters who had no desire to get behind hw bush after he lied about taxes.
Clinton’s success came from being conservative enough to rob pissed republican voters from their party, not from Perot siphoning off hw bush’s base.
Anyway, I’ll leave aside the question of how anyone can suggest that a regime actively supplying and denying a genocide while suppressing protests against it doesn’t count as fascist already and ask: if you really believe that project 2025 represents a move towards one party autocracy, and you remember January 6, what makes you think that Biden being declared the winner is going to stop the fascist state you fear?
If you truly believe that the republicans are as big a threat as you say then it doesn’t matter how people vote, they’ll just attempt a coup better this time. You’d make more sense if you were telling people to arm themselves instead of vote.
I expect there's a massive GOP movement to suppress votes and gerrymander other votes. I suspect there are efforts to defraud the election in some counties or even in some whole states. But I don't know how successful they will be.
I expect there will be an attempted coup d'etat if Biden wins the election, but I don't presume it's going to overthrow the US. We may break out into civil war, but then if the Republican party takes power, the US is going to be really hazardous anyway. I'm no expert, but by my understanding civil war is going to be inevitable so long as we can't get relief from the mass precarity and enough election reform to empower the public. And since the Democratic party still treats its progressive wing as red-haired stepchildren who have to dine at their own table, we can expect only table scraps.
Biden staying in the White House means I probably have longer before I'm collected to be processed as an undesirable. It could make a difference of months or decades.
That said, I'm pissed off, too, the degree to which the US is responsible for the Palestinian genocide, though the way I've been following it, Biden has been doing a lot more than the neo-liberal norm to quietly slow down Netanyahu's offensive into Gaza. Not as much as I'd like, by far, but more than I'd expect from an establishment Democrat. Biden's been slow-walking aid to Israel, whereas we expect the Republican party is glad to facilitate massacring Palestinians while simultaneously cutting off support to Ukraine so Russia can take over.
Assuming you are a voter, it's up to you, and maybe it's more important to you to symbolically support Palestine by not voting against the Republican party. But doing so might have material effects that make things worse in Gaza, hence I'm going to vote tactically.
Biden isn’t slow walking aid. The aid that is sent to Israel from the us with the approval and assistance of the Biden regime is literally being used to commit a genocide that Biden himself is on the record as denying.
There is no middle ground to this. He’s not doing more than the neoliberal norm. I can say that because the neoliberal norm was Clinton, bush 2 and Obama, under whose regimes nothing on this scale happened!
Biden is less willing to oppose Israel than Regan was.
Now a person could take the position that it’s acceptable (either because they can’t affect it or because they approve of it) for the guns of the fascist state to be pointed outside its own borders as opposed to inside. That person would be somewhere in the geometry that encompasses fascists, liberals and cowards.
I’m not saying that to place you there, only to point out the company someone keeps with such a position.
That’s not you.
A vote, a record of what you desire for your nation, state, county and town, is never symbolic. Even votes cast for parties that lose have substantial effects regarding funding, ballot presence, event appearances, media coverage and public awareness. I am in this thread telling people to vote their politics and values because that tactical garbage is what got us into this mess.
We’re stuck in the present but we can struggle for the future. The easiest way to be a part of that struggle is to vote for it!
I live in Oklahoma. Often, I don’t even get to vote for a position, because the only candidate that runs is a Republican.
And having volunteered on several Dem campaigns, that’s because Oklahoman republicans are allowed to terrorize and harass Dems into not running at all.
sometimes i see ballots like that too. if you don't have an option, but there's a write in line, write in something, anything. if there's no write in line and you don't see a candidate you like, leave that field blank.
some places are already dominated by a party machine. in those cases it might be best to do mutual aid like helping the people around you instead of volunteering for a political party that is unpopular and going to face insane opposition anyway.
I don't have all the answers for everyone in every case and place.
I like the party for socialism and liberation and it's a great time to like them because they're running a presidential candidate on a platform of palestinian statehood and an end to arms shipments to israel, but you might have different values.
I don't believe there is a single politician out there who mean more than 2% of what they say.
I definitely lean left in almost any category... the problem is that even if a politician or party directly promise, word for word, exactly what I want. There is zero chance they will even try to implement it when they get to power; worse, there is not even a way to keep them accountable except "not voting for them again".
I live in Canada and I voted for Trudeau in great part for electoral reform which was directly promised and then completely 180d. Trudeau did a couple of OK things but for the most part has been mediocre (not the cause of all our problems as the opposition claims). However, I find myself now in the spot where I either vote for Trudeau again to keep on the mediocrity train, or vote for PP who stands for nothing, has accomplished nothing in over 20 years of being a public employee leech and has all but promised he will run the country off a cliff to own the libs
i'm not as familiar with canadian politics as i could be, who's PP?
IIRC you have a communist party and a ml party. idk if they have a decent stance on the issues that motivate you but they're probably not a fall in line behind the liberals party like americas DSA is...
PP is short for Pierre Poilievre who is the head of the Conservative Party (our version of USA's Republicans) and likely to win the next election in 2025
The closest we get here is the NDP (New Democratic Party) who are left leaning... but they are in shambles here
Does this also apply to primaries? My ruby red state has an open primary, and our democrat ran unopposed, so I voted for the less "trumpy" republican for state positions. Excited that my state will have the PSL candidate on the ticket this November though.
