It's honestly purposeful Chuck has one goal and the American people being more than a disposable piggy bank isn't it
politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
They're losing young people due to social media influencers and terrible male role models
Time for a Labor Party in America.
Now is the time for world socialist revolution. The time for a Labor Party was 60 years ago. Instead, the leadership of the trade union movement subordinated itself to the Democratic Party and imperialism. This process has been replicated worldwide in the various Social Democratic and Labor parties in support of capitalist exploitation and imperialist war. The entire system is in a state of advanced decay and historical bankruptcy with no possibility of meaningful reform.
we still generally need ground work and revolutionary momentum
Can't use the word socialism, the well has been thoroughly poisoned as a buzzword
I keep writing my senators. One senator I voted for under the Working Families' Party (his name next to both WFP and Dem). The Second Senator is an old fart who I wanted to look up to, but continues to enable the R party as a Dem.
I write them often, and a few days ago, wrote the old fart to let him know his actions directly are why I just changed my voter registration to independent. Im no longer registered Democrat. I was there for Bernie, and nothing good has come of anything over my 10 years as a Dem. I write the WFP senator to remind him I voted for him under that party name.
Will it do anything? I don't know, but I hope everyone is writing thier senators and reps at least bi weekly. Its so easy to do today, you dont even need a stamp!
Americans: We're very unhappy with the status quo
Dems: Best I can do is more status quo
I'm watching from the sidelines but my gods, you guys need to take your politicians to account. Bricks for the current lot first, mind. The two "sides" aren't equal - one is awful and the other is redefining how bad human beings can be without directly sending people to gas chambers.
Some of us have been trying. The masses tend to bully and tell us it's all our fault, somehow. According to the Democrats and their base, progressives are simultaneously too weak and unimportant to listen to, and so powerful that we can swing entire elections. I'm still waiting to hear how that one makes sense.
The gas chambers will be televised.
Murca is so fucked.
I really hope that the Dems leadership actually listens for once. Chasing these mythical "reasonable Republicans" has not worked, will not work, and will continue moving the Overton window further right.
So I'm sure that's exactly what they'll do. Could we please get another party that actually represents people???
Another party won't help. They have already gotten their fix in. Voting doesn't matter in the US anymore.
Voting won't save us now. Self defense and community defense are all we have left. The system has been stolen by the ultra rich, and they are gleefully enacting as much violence against us all as they want, because they "know" they don't have to listen to us anymore. The only fix is to Luigi the violent class.
https://sdvoice.info/trump-lost-vote-suppression-won-here-are-the-numbers/
https://electiontruthalliance.org/eta
First and last links are the data. The middle links are for us stupid people that need to be told how to read the data in the last link.
Here's the thing. No.
We don't really have two parties. We have oligarchs in control of both parties, and both parties work together to make sure no more parties can exist. They do this by making it seem like the right and the left are opposed to each other, but really both work together to keep you down.
We can't fix this with parties. What we need to do is abolish parties. Prevent rich people from consolidating power. Give no small group of power-hungry bastards the ability to control everything. This means a drastic overhaul, and the people in power are not going to give it up willingly. They won't fight fair, they won't accept the results of an election unless it goes their way, and they won't give you an opportunity to win.
I agree with the sentiment, but I do not agree that political parties should be abolished. Instead, there should be proportional representation, and more political parties, with more perspectives — the majority of solutions come from a democracy.
Parties are just a power transfer from voters to oligarchs. Coalition governments are just as easy to manipulate as two-party systems. Politicians shouldn't be permitted a short-hand explanation of what they stand for. They should be required to make a full throated defense of their positions on the record. Parties provide political cover to do unpopular things while pretending to not be in a position to stop it.
You do have a point, but what would be the alternative? I have considered direct democracy, but the ultra-wealthy may still use that to their advantage.
You can still elect representatives, you just remove money from the equation. Candidates are given a public forum to share ideas, provide their credentials, and debate issues. Voters use a STAR voting system to vote for all the candidates they like. Special interest groups are free to speak and advertise all they want, but they cannot promote or attack a specific candidate.
It's more or less how local primaries work, just on a larger scale.
How do you have proportional representation with a president? And from what it seems like your president is king.
You do need to change the system, but you can keep the President, reduce the President's powers, and have a prime-minister to take care of many areas.
P.S.: I am from Portugal, he's definitely not my President.
We need to draft a new constitution.
… that’s what shithead is trying to do…
That's like not liking how your Civilization game is playing out and hitting restart, it's lazy.
I disagree, we need to do it the hard way and have actual reform so we have stronger checks and balances.
The guys who wrote the original constitution would have suggested drafting a new one over a century ago. It was never supposed to be unchanging.
I disagree, we need to do it the hard way and have actual reform so we have stronger checks and balances
Which would require rewriting significant portions of the Constitution...
Which is different than starting over entirely
Barely. It's not a long document to begin with.
You can entirely rewrite something while still looking at the first version. It doesn't mean you start from scratch
I really hope that the Dems leadership actually listens for once
They had power because the DNC was behind them, and due to the "victory fund" the DNC controlled the purse strings of a lot of state parties.
The voting members of the DNC listened, and elected a nonbiased DNC chair for the first time in decades.
So now the senior elected Dems don't have anyone behind them. Seniority only mattered as tradition, they can all lose their leadership positions now if they lose the next round of leadership votes.
Could we please get another party that actually represents people???
We basically did already. The Chair has ultimate control of the party, and we got a drastic change in chair.
The Chair has ultimate control of the party, and we got a drastic change in chair.
Oh "drastic" change huh? First thing the new Dem chair (Martin) did was put up that right-leaning zionist bluedog centrist idiot Slotkin to rebutt trumps state of the union speech. Thats some impressive change. And its been Dems collaborating on republican votes since then, hasnt it. I see no change whatsoever with the new chair. If anything he fumbled over himself to assure the donors as quickly as he could that they were still calling the shots, and that progressivism hadnt been let into the building.
"Now if we just could be a little bit more like the republicans, that'll surely work this time around."
"The “What Happened in 2024” report confirms that 30 million voters who showed up to the polls in 2020 failed to materialize in 2024. That is a big number, and it represents the largest number of drop-off voters dating back to 2012, when 27 million voters failed to return to the polls."
It wasn't a "drop off" and I was telling people why this was going to happen before the election.
The 2020 numbers were artificially inflated by vote by mail covid precautions.
Republican precincts saw the increased Democratic turnout and actively worked to make vote by mail harder which limited participation and when fewer people vote that only helps Republicans.
It was all so predictable and the fix is 100% vote by mail EVERYWHERE.
Not just that, but making voting day a holiday would help. Make it a friday to monday four day event for fucks sake!
If we had 100% vote by mail, we wouldn't need a holiday. :)
Vote by mail addresses a huge obstacle to voting, employment. A lot of people can't take time off to vote.
Opening more voting sites would also be a good idea.
What your polls close before people get off work? We have 3 hour law if need 3 hours to vote put if polls close at 7 and you get off at 5 it means you have to get off by 4 to have a 3 hour block to vote.
Not everybody has a 9 to 5.
Yes voter suppression is very effective
COVID people, that's why the huge turnout in 2020, nothing else. Especially mail-in ballots.
Pretty much, look at a non-covid election and compare vote by mail states to the average American turnout.
I'm biased because I live in Oregon and we tie voter registration to DMV licenses AND do 100% vote by mail.
2016: 80.33% voter turnout.
2018: 67.8%
2020: 78.5%
2022: 66.9%
2024: 75%
In 2016 there were 2,553,808 registrants and 2,051,452 voters, compared with 2020 and 2,951,428 registrants and 2,317,965 voters.
In 2024, the difference was negligible, 75% returning ballots and 2,308,256 voters. Yeah, a slight drop, but then we had a bunch of people die from Covid too.
Sources:
https://sos.oregon.gov/elections/Documents/Voter_Turnout_History_General_Election.pdf
https://www.opb.org/article/2024/12/26/oregon-voter-turnout-dropped-75-percent-2024-election/
If you compare that to the national averages:
2016: 59.2%
2018: 49% (highest mid-term turnout since 1914)
2020: 65.3%
2022: 46% (highest since 1970)
2024: 63.5%
Sources:
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/voter-turnout-in-presidential-elections
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/07/12/voter-turnout-2018-2022/
We need to abandon the Democratic Party at this point. Democrats are not capable of winning national elections. The Democratic Party is not run by serious people who actually intend on winning power and wielding it wisely. Those still telling folks to vote for Democrats are not politically serious people. The only future can be found in parties like the Working Families Party. Centrists will simply need to hold their nose, quit dividing the left, and vote for progressive candidates. Remember, a vote for a Democrat is a vote for a Republican. Democrats can't win national elections. In a two party system, we can't afford to throw our votes away on parties that are doomed to lose.
They literally won one election ago.
That's great, all we need now is another worldwide pandemic with millions of deaths to push through whatever idiot the DNC decides to run.
My vote was against rump roast, not FOR the Dem running office in 2020.
I'm not for any candidate standing against Medicare for all and the working people.
So yeah they won, but not because of love for the party.
The democrats literally held the presidency until 5mo ago dude lol I agree they’re horribly mismanaged at times and right now they are way off base with their constituents, but to act like they are just some consistently losing party is ridiculous. Almost 2/3 of the country is governed by Democrats. Most Americans are represented by democrats as well.
Dem strategist brains are as wormy as RFK Jr’s, they’ll never accept that it was anything other than the moral impurity of the voting base that lost them the election.
"It's not the product it's the marketing" - Dems (probably)