one thing i keep thinking about is how there is simply no way to design a constitutional system that can resist authoritarian incursion if participants in that system do not actually care that much
Replies
congress right now has all the power it needs to put an end to MAGA despotism. they just don’t want to. and there is no set of rules you could devise that could overcome that obstacle.
mar 12, 2025, 2:50 pm • 8,405 1,228 • view
I'm tempted to say public opinion plays a role too, but as you've said Democrats act like public opinion can't be changed. If they act like business as usual the public is going to assume that is the case.
mar 12, 2025, 3:19 pm • 2 0 • view
I mean a different system would elect different people. A blue candidate in a 51% red district isn’t in congress but under a different system they could be.
mar 12, 2025, 6:24 pm • 1 0 • view
It is not just the elected politicians, it is the voters who elected those politicians. True, some MAGA voters now find themselves affected by the actions of the fascist government, but they wholeheartedly support Trump and MAGA. They support the policy goals, they just didn’t think it’d be them.
mar 12, 2025, 4:17 pm • 10 1 • view
How do you share a democracy with ~30% voters who don’t want a democracy? Who don’t want decisions made by voters, but by a “strong” man? THAT I think is the question, and I think the answer is you cannot. Whatever rules/laws you pass (to protect voting rights, etc.), they feel entirely…
mar 12, 2025, 4:17 pm • 12 3 • view
…justified in ignoring/subverting. You cannot play a game of chess against someone who randomly removes pieces when you’re not looking (or even as you’re looking, and still denies it), moves pieces in ways that are not allowed, etc. There must be federal election standards. They must be enforced.
mar 12, 2025, 4:17 pm • 11 2 • view
Or else, that state is no longer admitted to the Union. You either agree to the rules that we all follow, or you go do your own North Korean thing, and have a cult of personality.
mar 12, 2025, 4:17 pm • 6 1 • view
How did the government unify two parties that had completely opposite beliefs after the Civil War? From what I read, the Republican party was liberal until a generation or two after the war, when men gained more wealth and changed laws to help themselves.
mar 16, 2025, 12:06 am • 0 0 • view
I guess it's been a rocky relationship the whole time from what I just read. Especially since the white robes gained entry in many levels of gov both before and after the Reconstruction Act.
mar 16, 2025, 12:15 am • 0 0 • view
there's got to be plenty of things you can do to make it less easy to profit from being a collaborator, disincentivizing corruption, etc. overturning Citizens United? add another 200 members to the house and abolish the Senate?
mar 12, 2025, 3:15 pm • 0 0 • view
right, but where we are now we have no power to do those things.
mar 12, 2025, 7:41 pm • 0 0 • view
Since you're a follower of Jesse Singal, why don't you tell us what he thinks?
mar 13, 2025, 1:18 am • 0 0 • view
My sincere question is, do you think the Pelosi/Shumer types ever believed in anything? They pontificate about the constitution and the eye of history and all that. But now they’re just doing things that only people who ignore history could do.
mar 12, 2025, 3:23 pm • 6 0 • view
They believe in $. We know that for sure.
mar 12, 2025, 5:37 pm • 1 0 • view
(1) Naive question, please forgive me: do members of congress even discuss matters with members of the opposing party? is there any degree of internal debate, friendly questioning & challenging, any attempt to persuade folks to vote outside their party block?
mar 12, 2025, 3:21 pm • 2 0 • view
(2) In days of yore (i.e. "Profiles in Courage?), we'd read or hear about how compromise worked in the past, competing concerns coming together for the sake of preserving the country. Is $ so important now, to each politician, that they cannot muster up an ounce of courage to speak out for justice?
mar 12, 2025, 3:24 pm • 1 0 • view
(3) The margins in both the Senate & House are thin. It would only take a relative few republicans in each chamber to thwart what is happening. Is it insane to wonder why this cannot be accomplished, either by reason or plea for humanity? Are things not at such a cynical state, the $ is almighty?
mar 12, 2025, 3:26 pm • 1 0 • view
Obama spent 8 years reaching out to republicans and getting rebuffed. Biden spent 4 years doing the same. It is understandable that Democrats might not want to carry on doing the same thing indefinitely. If the republicans want bipartisanship, let *them* reach out.
mar 12, 2025, 4:58 pm • 4 1 • view
Limiting the pardon power would help a little because participants would then have to consider not just what they can get away with today but how it might play out in the future. The DOGE boys might be more timid if they thought a change in admin might bring a 20 year computer tampering charge.
mar 12, 2025, 9:00 pm • 9 3 • view
“Congress right now has all the power it needs” - you mean with or without Republican defections? What can the Democratic minority do that it’s not doing? (Outside of competing better in the court of public opinion)
mar 12, 2025, 3:07 pm • 5 0 • view
Every single D should vote no on every Republican bill and every Republican nominee until the crimes stop. Yes, the government will go to a shutdown, and there will even be a risk of default. The other option is complicity in destruction of the country, which is worse.
mar 12, 2025, 3:17 pm • 6 0 • view
And no more cordiality and socializing with the traitors who are destroying our nation.
mar 12, 2025, 3:18 pm • 3 0 • view
I do think a large step in the right direction would be to make voting compulsory for citizens. Australia does it and it's been noted by political scholars that the end result is much less polarization, and no campaigns rely on more/less voter turnout to succeed.
mar 12, 2025, 6:33 pm • 21 1 • view
I heard that the Australians make election day into a good time, with barbecue served and everything. And they hold it on the weekend. Which would make so much sense here, as a start. Tuesday doesn't work when people have to choose between keeping their job and voting (some employers will not care)
mar 12, 2025, 6:42 pm • 14 2 • view
I agree! they also dip everyone's pinkie in red dye to add a layer of verification to make sure no one double votes or completes someone else's ballot. Even little things like that would go a long way in removing all of the "people voting for 5 dead grandparents" rumors
mar 12, 2025, 8:02 pm • 3 1 • view
Turns out you need good faith to operate a good-faith system
mar 12, 2025, 3:33 pm • 6 1 • view
The rule is : The People own their government. We just rent it to politicians. It's time to kick out the squatters, take it back, and clean up the mess. We can do this. And we will.
mar 12, 2025, 3:23 pm • 8 0 • view
At this point probably not. But better rules around elections, voting systems, and information environment are/were possible that make congresspeople more responsive to voters, and we declined to recognize/address the danger in failing to implement them long ago.
mar 14, 2025, 3:32 am • 6 0 • view
People were paid handsomely to not implement these improvements.
mar 14, 2025, 3:44 am • 4 0 • view
1,000 x this.
mar 14, 2025, 2:21 pm • 1 0 • view
In "Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell Into Tyranny," Edward J. Watts lists massive wealth inequality and the acceptance of political violence among the factors that led to the republic's downfall after nearly 500 years. Watts' book was published in 2018, well ahead of 1/6/21.
mar 16, 2025, 5:59 pm • 5 0 • view
It may help if it is a multiparty congress where there is no way one party has the ability to have a 51+% majority.
mar 12, 2025, 6:03 pm • 5 0 • view
mar 12, 2025, 3:35 pm • 0 0 • view
But Congress is MAGA … are we still pretending that “republicans” are different than MAGA?
mar 12, 2025, 5:29 pm • 3 0 • view
Thank you for saying, again, what no one else is willing to say.
mar 12, 2025, 7:38 pm • 2 0 • view
So, do the Democrats in Congress have that power, or just the Republicans, or the two jointly? The Republicans have zero incentive to end the despot's rule. So you won't see them act solely or as a party. And I suspect Democrats don't have that power.
mar 12, 2025, 5:22 pm • 4 0 • view
there is, but it was disallowing Republican candidates who are clearly opposed to democracy from running from office, and removing those clearly opposed from office they currently hold, for either failure or inability to abide by their legally binding oath to follow and defend the Constitution
mar 12, 2025, 7:47 pm • 7 1 • view
Like: Democracy is not a suicide pact. Civil Rights, Free Speech, and Free Elections are not suicide pacts. We are not required to allow antidemocratic and tyrannical forces to operate in our society, and in-fact maintaining a free society REQUIRES we DONT Allow them to operate.
mar 12, 2025, 7:50 pm • 8 3 • view
It’s cause most of them benefit from such a system. They have all the safety nets they’d ever want.
mar 12, 2025, 2:51 pm • 9 1 • view
Then I think we're at the point where people need to stop citing the Constitution and instead start citing the Declaration.
mar 12, 2025, 3:03 pm • 6 0 • view
It’s why we need ranked choice voting as a way to introduce competition to our political system, which would lift up third parties.
mar 12, 2025, 5:48 pm • 6 0 • view
As someone who worked the polls for NYC's first ranked-choice mayor primary, implementing that system takes a lot of explaining to voters, both what it is and how they are supposed to mark their ballots accordingly. Some misunderstood the instructions and voted for just one candidate, same as usual.
mar 12, 2025, 6:48 pm • 3 0 • view
That also means that in order for ranked choice voting to work, voters have to read up on their candidates (which they don't) or the candidates have to make a wider effort to introduce themselves to the public. They'd have to be informed enough to read the ballot and not just looking for the R or D.
mar 12, 2025, 6:54 pm • 2 0 • view
When it comes to RCV, voter education drives are vital. I also think that having a closed primary can help with the picking party over candidate. I like the idea of an open primary more, but with so much power the two parties have, doing a closed primary is better for this moment.
mar 12, 2025, 7:05 pm • 0 0 • view
Exactly. Maybe just maybe, this is America now, that voters are ok with a fascistic government with cruel policies, systemic racism and bigotry is ok. Lack of good education is ok. I just know that I am not okay with it.
mar 12, 2025, 2:56 pm • 6 0 • view
It is apparent that a lack of good education is exactly how we got here… That needs to be addressed, and certainly won’t be under this administration.
mar 12, 2025, 4:32 pm • 5 1 • view
Well, we could amend the C to include VP & Prez in rules that currently don’t cover them. We could say convicted felons are not eligible to hold Federal office. The Founders were clearly too trusting of the potential holders of the two highest offices.
mar 13, 2025, 2:40 am • 4 0 • view
The founders seem to have relied on shame as a guardrail. Clearly a grave lapse.
mar 13, 2025, 5:15 am • 3 0 • view
Well at least in a parliamentary system you could have a no confidence vote
mar 12, 2025, 3:57 pm • 6 0 • view
Congress is more concerned with appeasing their corporate interests and the dark money that keeps them in power, then they are with serving the people. Not just the money at election time, but all the favors, kickbacks, insider trading that goes on all term long. Major reforms are needed.
mar 12, 2025, 3:50 pm • 11 1 • view
Corporate Democrats need to be primaried. We need better security checks for all elected officials. No one with ties to an enemy state should be eligible for elected office.
mar 12, 2025, 5:34 pm • 5 0 • view
I don't think Trump was eligible, certainly not January 6th. but nobody actually enforced that, is the problem.
mar 12, 2025, 7:46 pm • 5 1 • view
not AFTER January 6th.
mar 12, 2025, 7:46 pm • 3 1 • view
Very cool and very legal when you're the in-group
mar 12, 2025, 2:52 pm • 4 0 • view
I have a lower stake comparison but it redounds similarly. When Hochul announced she was cancelling CP - it was completely lawless as there was zero basis for it under the law. She eventually relented bc she was going to lose the lawsuits and there was no other reasonable alternative funding ... 1/2
mar 12, 2025, 3:00 pm • 26 2 • view
mechanism. But most telling was the cowardice from the state legislative bodies. The leaders should've threatened impeachment immediately, regardless of the merits of the policy, as it was clear usurpation of their power. But they acquiesced to this usurpation by acting as if the governor could.
mar 12, 2025, 3:00 pm • 36 2 • view
Yes!
mar 12, 2025, 3:58 pm • 0 0 • view
This is why we need ethics, morals, values, why establishment systems need adaptability and fresh messaging to meet people where they are. I think the inherent risk of failure in any government system is our motivator to keep advocating for our values, lest they perish.
mar 12, 2025, 4:38 pm • 3 0 • view
There WERE rules that kept this from happening. The US Constitution was built on social norms and traditions. The US Constitution explicitly relies on men of good intention as understood in the 18th century. If members of Congress can't be challenged to duels because of mean tweets anymore.
mar 12, 2025, 3:51 pm • 8 0 • view
I don’t think that’s 100 percent true. But democracy, by definition, relies on norms bc it relies on people choosing it.
mar 12, 2025, 3:55 pm • 1 0 • view
It is 100% true. Read any of the Federalist Papers and they are full of references to social norms and expectations. Words like impeachment carried a completely different connotation even a few decades ago. Nixon resigned office to avoid being impeached. Trump grew more popular after being impeached
mar 12, 2025, 3:58 pm • 2 0 • view
In other words the system didn’t actually prevent this, it just didn’t happen for a while
mar 12, 2025, 3:56 pm • 9 0 • view
No. More that the Constitution didn't take some threats seriously because the social norms made them beyond the pale. People getting caught lying to the public were shunned. There was no reason to build in rules to prevent this type of behavior.
mar 12, 2025, 4:02 pm • 8 0 • view
In other words the system you said prevented this didn’t actually prevent it, it just didn’t happen for a while
mar 12, 2025, 4:03 pm • 5 0 • view
No. I am saying that they built the system on top of existing rules of society. For example, there is no mention of English as the official language because the going in assumption was that everyone would speak, read and understand English. That is just how systems get build.
mar 12, 2025, 4:06 pm • 1 0 • view
In other words, the system didn’t actually prevent this, it just didn’t happen for a while. You can keep pretending that isn’t what you’re saying, but it is. Norms are not a viable means of prevention, they just didn’t fail for a while.
mar 12, 2025, 4:09 pm • 6 0 • view
Louder for those in the back!
mar 12, 2025, 4:54 pm • 1 0 • view
I am actually saying that. There was no reason to build into the system something that was already in the environment. The US Constitution didn't rebuild common law they just built on top of it. We have arrived at the point where the norms the US Constitution sits upon no longer exist.
mar 12, 2025, 4:59 pm • 3 0 • view
Rules are meaningless if not enforced. The word isn't en-kindly-ask-ment. Willingness to use force is what makes things a rule rather than a request. Turns out, most of what people thought were rules were just requests.
mar 12, 2025, 4:42 pm • 2 1 • view
We can recall our reps. Not sure how, but they work for us. I call everyday and tell them they are making it known they do not need their jobs.
mar 12, 2025, 4:35 pm • 2 0 • view
Truth.
mar 12, 2025, 5:36 pm • 1 0 • view
The cowards are prioritizing their jobs over country. The set of rules you’re looking for is term limits for everyone. Make representation a public service again, not a grift.
mar 13, 2025, 9:52 pm • 4 0 • view
@fetterman.senate.gov
mar 12, 2025, 3:54 pm • 1 0 • view
Actually, there is one way. Vote these enabler traitors out. That includes Dems too!
mar 13, 2025, 1:25 am • 2 0 • view
I'm done with the Democrats if they give in to the Republicans. I'm crushed! What the hell has to happen for them to fight!! I will not vote for those that aid Trump's destruction of America. Voting with Republicans is bending the knee.
mar 12, 2025, 3:58 pm • 3 0 • view
Direct vote.
mar 12, 2025, 9:17 pm • 2 0 • view
Jamelle, you say "Congress" as if it were a completely independent institution. Congress is currently in the hands of the GOP, who have been taken over by Trump/MAGA. Congress doesn't have the "power" if that majority is set on enabling MAGA despotism.
mar 13, 2025, 4:55 am • 6 0 • view
Exactly his point i think
mar 13, 2025, 7:28 am • 3 0 • view
The issue everyone is missing is the definition of America. Reading the Constitution, there’s plenty of wiggle room to decide all people are judged by the same laws, or that injecting moral judgement into those laws yield different readings. Whose morals count? Depends on the morality of the reader.
mar 12, 2025, 4:48 pm • 0 0 • view
This is why the most heinous person imaginable as President is hailed as Patriot by large swaths of citizens. They have a different definition of “Patriot”. The U.S. has no incorruptible standards bearer to define itself.
mar 12, 2025, 4:53 pm • 1 0 • view
The assumption of the Constitution was to remove the possibility of monarchy and religious influence over a diverse population. The U.S. doesn’t have enough leadership willing to obey that directive and there’s nothing to stop people from disobeying it. I call on the Military to fix it.
mar 12, 2025, 5:00 pm • 0 0 • view
The ultimate answer is the military could step in and throw a coup for this. But the military is on board with this.
mar 13, 2025, 3:32 am • 2 0 • view
Like 7 republicans could go to the democrats and end this. They don't have 7 sane people.
mar 12, 2025, 3:01 pm • 72 6 • view
Sadly, we in the cheap seats seem to be spending more time strategizing how to get out of this than any elected leader.
mar 12, 2025, 4:22 pm • 0 0 • view
of course not, who with an operating conscience or capacity for reason would run for federal office as a Republican?
mar 12, 2025, 3:05 pm • 27 0 • view
Or vote republican for that matter
mar 12, 2025, 4:12 pm • 3 0 • view
The GOP under Bush and Cheney threw out the last sane centrists circa 2006. The last sane one at the national level was probably Sen. Lincoln Chafee, the only Republican to vote against the Iraq War. The purge of the GOP arguably was begun by Gingrich in the 1990s. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln...
mar 12, 2025, 3:57 pm • 10 2 • view
Or worse 7 moral, principled people.
mar 12, 2025, 4:41 pm • 5 1 • view
It's because of the type of person that Republicans now send to congress. They don't see themselves as a coequal branch of government. They're potential Fox News guests who occasionally have to vote on something or other.
mar 12, 2025, 4:10 pm • 10 1 • view
they don't even like government as a concept! of course they're bad at it because they don't think it can do anything good.
mar 12, 2025, 7:48 pm • 2 1 • view
The drafters just assumed that each branch would jealousy guard its own power. They were clearly wrong to assume this.
mar 12, 2025, 5:49 pm • 12 3 • view
Yes there is, the Senate in the Congress. The morality and indecency of the MAGA Congress can be voted out! We have 1 1/2 yrs to go but if the MAGA minions let them know they have a NO vote, from the minions, as they have been doing by begging for MAGA town halls and NOT showing up for them but
mar 12, 2025, 4:18 pm • 1 0 • view
running away from their own voters! The MAGA Congress has decided to let their orange Jesus PURPOSELY destroy our economy and our Democracy by not giving their voters a backward glance or any help, as we slide into a 1929 Recession..
mar 12, 2025, 4:18 pm • 1 0 • view
MAGA only way to bring their promised tax cuts to the wealthy, they have to take Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, some or all of them. We need to fight these morally bankrupt MAGAs and show them who is boss!
mar 12, 2025, 4:18 pm • 1 0 • view
Yeah because the Republicans have decided that time doesn't exist and that the test of the 119th Congress only counts as one day, so the 15-day rule to vote on the tariffs is hereby suspended. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/11/u...
mar 12, 2025, 3:00 pm • 6 2 • view
"We declare a year is a day." This is a mediaeval court doing the bidding of an absolute monarch, reality be damned. American politics is a fucking clown show.
mar 12, 2025, 4:29 pm • 2 1 • view
That’s so insane 🤦🏻they have abdicated their power.
mar 12, 2025, 3:49 pm • 1 0 • view
Yup
mar 12, 2025, 2:51 pm • 9 0 • view
They don’t want to because the flaw in this system is that they both want this to happen, and when the damns break, they can claim it was not them to their constituents.
mar 13, 2025, 3:31 am • 1 0 • view
Yes, BUT - That is where WE come in. If we care, we must intensify and keep up the pressure on our representatives. We must motivate them to act in our interest i.e. do their job.
mar 12, 2025, 4:38 pm • 4 1 • view
Actual, honest, and systemic education is the only obstacle I can imagine. It’s why they hate public education. It’s not even that good in the US. But still too good for their liking!
mar 13, 2025, 4:05 pm • 0 0 • view
Congress = Republicans But everyone is going to blame the Democrats. Find a way to let Republicans win with total and united Democrat opposition. Then Dems need to go out and do town halls and talk shows reminding voters that Republicans did this. This is all on Republicans and always has been.
mar 12, 2025, 4:45 pm • 2 0 • view
These are the people who couldn’t defend the constitution when President Obama nominated a Supreme Court Justice to replace Scalia, which was a back breaker when it came to the first Trump regime’s attack on this country through the court system. They are wimps to the core.
mar 14, 2025, 3:53 am • 5 0 • view
The system was never designed to survive in an environment where this amount of money was available to buy all the participants. A civilized society can’t afford billionaires, and can’t survive trillionaires.
mar 12, 2025, 2:54 pm • 166 26 • view
In terms of relative wealth the robber barons of the gilded age weren't far off what is happening now.
mar 12, 2025, 3:51 pm • 29 0 • view
I don't know that Elon level wealth relative to the the average working class salary ever existed before in history. I may be wrong, but think that size of financial lever has never been brought to bear on a government before.
mar 12, 2025, 4:45 pm • 15 1 • view
Rockefeller was the richest person in US history at $474 billion (adjusted for inflation). Elon is about 100 billion short...and dropping.
mar 12, 2025, 5:24 pm • 7 0 • view
Rockefeller was worth $1.4 billion when he died in 1937, equivalent to about $24 billion in dollars in 2018 when adjusting for inflation. The larger number is adjusting based on %GDP, or purchasing power. Neither are entirely accurate, but still much richer than I thought. I stand corrected!
mar 12, 2025, 6:41 pm • 7 0 • view
And that's before you go back to say Louis XIV when the peasants had pretty much nothing. But that's not to say that's what we should be aiming for or that having rogue oligarchs calling the shots is in anyway likely to work for the common good.
mar 12, 2025, 4:51 pm • 1 0 • view
Roman emperors, maybe??
mar 12, 2025, 8:02 pm • 2 0 • view
Which is why trump romanticizes that era so much.
mar 12, 2025, 4:40 pm • 2 0 • view
We're on the fast track to October 1929 at this rate.
mar 12, 2025, 6:45 pm • 4 0 • view
Yeah, the founders trusted that only one branch might be corrupt at one time, failing to take mass buyoffs into consideration. A constitution made for a moral people, and wholly inadequate for the government of any other.
mar 12, 2025, 4:45 pm • 3 1 • view
A dueling people, too: have a sneaking suspicion someone would have called Musk out by now.
mar 13, 2025, 5:46 am • 1 0 • view
they don't want to because the ones with the power support it.
mar 12, 2025, 5:31 pm • 1 0 • view
Might help, though, if you had a single legislature with proportional representation, rather than two competing legislatures, one with super majority rules, and both poorly representative of the full population.
mar 12, 2025, 3:20 pm • 6 0 • view
This💯 I was going to ask to @jamellebouie.net to define participants. I think most active voters would consider themselves participants and yet congress, the only ones with actual voices, don’t accurately represent most voters: Overwhelmingly white, rich, cis, straight, or male and right leaning.
mar 12, 2025, 3:25 pm • 3 0 • view
The first test is whether Democrats in the Senate allow the Trump regime House bill to pass, given it ratifies all of the lawless impoundment Musk and Trump are doing. Senate Republicans are, of course, useless authoritarian cultists.
mar 12, 2025, 4:11 pm • 3 0 • view
The judicial branch may need some way to enforce law (a dedicated law enforcement agency?). A lawless executive and a supine legislature are the secret sauce for authoritarian-minded Republicans.
mar 12, 2025, 11:21 pm • 4 0 • view
We can adapt judges from the documentary on the subject.
mar 12, 2025, 11:24 pm • 1 0 • view
mar 13, 2025, 12:23 am • 2 0 • view
Absolutely the whole purpose of impeachment, and the GOP refuses to do it, even for promoting a violent attack on themselves.
mar 12, 2025, 4:15 pm • 6 1 • view
Rachel Maddow last night explained that Congress has the ability to stop doge’s the illegal activities. They’re trying a truly bizarre proposal to avoid this.
mar 12, 2025, 6:32 pm • 6 0 • view
It's a version of "the airplane pilot IS the terrorist" problem
mar 12, 2025, 2:53 pm • 1,489 32 • view
Reminds me a lot of the pilot that allegedly had a bad mushroom trip and just decided to shut off the engines. In this case though, it's the co-pilot deep in a ketamine hole after being spurned by Grimes and every other woman who's ever been within a six foot radius of His Weirdness.
mar 12, 2025, 3:49 pm • 7 0 • view
The Constitution writers ARE the slavers.
mar 12, 2025, 3:36 pm • 1 0 • view
Spineless GOP. Exited the party under Bush 2, never ending war and making women 2nd class citizens AGAIN. Moderate I am, but w/only 2 real parties, we need to make sure that no 1 party dominates especially w/ a narcissistic, money mongering grifter, where POTUS is the clown of the show 🤡 + alien. 👎
mar 13, 2025, 6:55 pm • 5 0 • view
Exactly!! "How do you design a system that still functions if it's subsumed by bad faith actors?" The answer is you can't.
mar 12, 2025, 3:21 pm • 519 19 • view
It’s called: REVOLUTION. Been done many, many times throughout the distant and recent past.
mar 12, 2025, 7:34 pm • 0 0 • view
You have to address the underlying causes and create systems that limit the power anyone can amass so bad actor or not the harm they can do can't stretch very far.
mar 12, 2025, 7:50 pm • 0 0 • view
You can. The US and Soviet Union has to consider this problem for Command & Control of Nuclear Missiles during the Cold War. Launch systems would need a second positive affirmation to launch
mar 12, 2025, 4:29 pm • 2 0 • view
The problem then splits. The bad faith actor now has a heckler's veto and can refuse to go forward. Or, the bad faith actor can capture C&C in its entirety and launch at whim. <== But this is the point we are at.
mar 12, 2025, 4:29 pm • 2 0 • view
The system will always have been flawed as it was built in a society of VERY flawed people. It was always going to be an uphill battle. But there might be accidental design. We might be so ingrained and integrated in the global community that between them and the 60 odd % of us can wrestle it back.
mar 12, 2025, 5:46 pm • 1 0 • view
That is what rule of law is about. Everyone accepts the rule of law. You can't play tic-tac-toe if the participants don't accept the simply idea that the rules govern their behavior and following the rules makes the game work.
mar 12, 2025, 3:53 pm • 5 0 • view
You're not supposed to be able to do that. That's the point to being a free person in a free country.
mar 12, 2025, 7:01 pm • 0 0 • view
gee, if only biden- with ALL the info he had for 4 years - could’ve helped plan for this. love(d) him but duuuuude wtf
mar 12, 2025, 5:16 pm • 1 0 • view
That's why the people always have one power against any system.
mar 12, 2025, 5:27 pm • 0 0 • view
Better #recall mechanisms may help, bad recall mechanisms could make it worse.
mar 12, 2025, 8:50 pm • 0 0 • view
One way of addressing that is proportional representation. In the country I live in, we have a form of that, & we operate within the Westminster system. To this day, our head of State is the King of England. Weirdly enough, we’ve ended up with a superior and more robust democracy than the US.
mar 13, 2025, 9:57 am • 62 1 • view
We shouldn't take it for granted. Disinfo, lack of political and media literacy are a risk that will erode faith in our political system. There are even fewer checks and balances against elected idiots/vandals here!
mar 15, 2025, 6:31 am • 0 0 • view
This is the way. Also the U.S. needs more than "2" parties to represent 300+ million people.
mar 13, 2025, 12:08 pm • 42 1 • view
Right. The best you can do is ensure people can exit the system cleanly.
mar 12, 2025, 7:11 pm • 0 0 • view
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6...
mar 12, 2025, 8:03 pm • 61 4 • view
Holy shit. This is the first time I'm finding out about this.
mar 12, 2025, 11:33 pm • 0 0 • view
Gödel was a genius, of course. But I bet he had not considered the "what happens if a Russian spy is elected POTUS" loophole. 😐
mar 12, 2025, 10:26 pm • 2 0 • view
VOTE MIDTERMS 2026 every Republican seat in the House of Representatives is up the Senate can also go Blue
mar 12, 2025, 9:02 pm • 64 0 • view
No guarantee that all 50 states will hold free elections but maybe
mar 12, 2025, 10:53 pm • 1 0 • view
ACT NOW. Call your reps. Demonstrate. Boycott. Support others who are able to more active/public than you. Cross the midterm bridge when you get to it - you gotta walk the road you're on first.
mar 12, 2025, 11:10 pm • 3 0 • view
This is so true, I have had people that have said you were right I should have listened to you and I voted wrong, we have to keep on putting the word out and keep up the Resistance
mar 13, 2025, 2:25 am • 2 0 • view
you think Drumpf will allow midterms?
mar 12, 2025, 9:24 pm • 33 0 • view
the federal government doesn't run elections.
mar 12, 2025, 9:28 pm • 49 0 • view
The federal government doesn’t. But dictators do. Directly or indirectly. Eric Adams is just one flavor of the corruption of our electoral systems that won’t require the federal government to actually staff polling stations for the federal government to control outcomes.
mar 13, 2025, 5:04 am • 4 0 • view
no preemptive defeatism
mar 12, 2025, 10:00 pm • 10 0 • view
they could, but gerrymandering and apathy make even attaining a majority a hard slog.
mar 12, 2025, 9:37 pm • 1 0 • view
yes. AND there are lots of people in first class trained to land the plane in an emergency and it would be GREAT if they would begin that process rather than let it slam into a cliff or a building
mar 12, 2025, 3:29 pm • 23 0 • view
...Yes. If they're part of the terror, why would they de-seat the captain? I get it. AND I think what's ALSO happening is people are cowards & waiting for a more adult-y adult that isn't coming. "The pilot might shoot me!" yes he might! AND it's your job & we are speeding towards immovable objects!
mar 12, 2025, 4:14 pm • 10 0 • view
Ooof. Yes.
mar 12, 2025, 3:10 pm • 18 0 • view
The firefighter is the arsonist
mar 12, 2025, 3:35 pm • 8 0 • view
Not to mention, how do you maintain democracy when people vote for a self-proclaimed dictator? Arguing that maybe 10% of his voters this time were fooled doesn’t really get at the issue.
mar 12, 2025, 6:08 pm • 1 0 • view
That is theoretically what the Electoral College is for.
mar 12, 2025, 6:10 pm • 1 0 • view
Exactly
mar 12, 2025, 8:11 pm • 0 0 • view
The solutions are in forcing the hands of the courts. Mandatory guidelines for courts (schedules, appeal duration, sentencing) for this extreme category of action is one, but plausibly manipulated. The only solution I've come up with are backwards facing "Spider-Man laws" as I call them...
mar 12, 2025, 3:49 pm • 2 0 • view
... Rules establishing that wealth and power guidelines (elected official, law enforcement and other state sanctioned violence, etc) set everyone else's outer perimeter of enforcement. If such a person colorably did X, their punishment is the max punishment of everyone else. Important to this ...
mar 12, 2025, 3:53 pm • 2 0 • view
... Would be that non-prosecution or unresolved prosecution is exactly equal to a sentence of 0s imprisonment, 0s of service, and $0.00 of fines. Structure the system to be aggressive against them.
mar 12, 2025, 3:54 pm • 1 0 • view
with great power comes great accountability? I like it
mar 12, 2025, 7:44 pm • 1 0 • view
Right? Like I don't think we can get powerful people to be ethical up and down the line anymore, but I do think you can scare them into behaving - or minimally not circling the wagons - with the threat of giving the 99% carte blanche to be exactly equally unethical.
mar 12, 2025, 8:25 pm • 1 0 • view
(you'd also need non-announcement of prosecution after X days of the apparent action to trigger this to prevent selective enforcement)
mar 12, 2025, 3:56 pm • 0 0 • view
The upshot is you can't just not poke the bear, lest their apparent action become legal for every single person. Because
mar 12, 2025, 3:59 pm • 1 0 • view
I think congress wants to, but they just don’t want to give up their jobs to save it. That is the irony. They don’t do their jobs in order to save their jobs.
mar 12, 2025, 3:03 pm • 4 0 • view
Who Needs Checks and Balances? Apparently Congress isn’t needed, So GOP’s power has been ceded, To Dear Leader who’s proceeded, To be a king. 3 branches defeated.
mar 14, 2025, 5:08 pm • 1 0 • view
What if ambition does not always counteract ambition?
mar 12, 2025, 3:16 pm • 4 1 • view
US constitution is seriously & intentionally flawed - it’s designed to over-represent small states. The ridiculous Senate is our “House of Lords” - completely anti-democratic and arbitrary. The fed court system was almost an afterthought - SCOTUS basically polices itself (or not).
mar 12, 2025, 11:59 pm • 1 0 • view
When created, the constitution was a naive compromise to maintain the status quo of the day. Only one other country in the world ever used our constitution as its model: the CSA. That alone should answer all questions.
mar 13, 2025, 12:03 am • 1 0 • view
I think the Founders thought ambition+electoral college would be able to stop someone like Trump. Madison reallllly underestimated how strong faction would be. Well, at least, didn’t anticipate the internet making it easier for a faction to gain so much strength.
mar 12, 2025, 10:02 pm • 9 0 • view
I'm not well-versed on Founding principles, but in my negligible reading, it seems like they didn't want factionalism to overpower duty to constituents and therefore didn't particularly approve of a party-based election system. www.history.com/news/foundin...
mar 12, 2025, 10:57 pm • 2 2 • view
While Congress absolutely should impeach and convict Trump, actually removing him from office would be difficult as he has probably consolidated the power to resist any effort to do so.
mar 12, 2025, 4:53 pm • 6 0 • view
The media landscape needs to change and Fox News needs to die. That would help. We also need to educate citizens like our lives depend on it, because, lo and behold, they do.
mar 12, 2025, 4:30 pm • 38 6 • view
Sadly, one of the objectives seems to limit education unless you can afford private school. See where I’m going with this. Hierarchy and aristocracy. Oppress the poor basically.
mar 12, 2025, 8:46 pm • 8 2 • view
💯
mar 12, 2025, 5:29 pm • 2 1 • view
They need to be threatened w/ primaries from the left. If they are threatened from both sides they might just decide to do the right thing. Their other option is to do nothing, still get primaried, and leave a destroyed nation turned dystopian hellscape in their wake. MAKE THEM DO THE RIGHT THING.
mar 12, 2025, 4:26 pm • 2 1 • view
Well, a higher degree of pluralism would reduce the bad incentives.
mar 12, 2025, 4:33 pm • 2 0 • view
Speakers of the House and Senate should be bipartisan so all proposals make it to the floor. And the people should be able to recall house and senate representatives. …this would be a start
mar 12, 2025, 4:17 pm • 1 0 • view
Sure there is. You empower the FEC to set rules and limit campaign contributions. I've long been of the mind that Citizens United, more than any other case or legislation in the past ~50 years, has been at fault for the degradation of our political system
mar 12, 2025, 4:17 pm • 4 0 • view
This is what drives me crazy about people saying "the constitution failed". It has clear remedies for what to do here. That the people we've entrusted to execute those duties are instead shirking them is not on the constitution itself
mar 12, 2025, 3:14 pm • 13 0 • view
Hell even where it has gaps, there's ways to change the constitution. But the people empowered to do so don't care, so they don't bother how do you enforce rules no one really cares about?
mar 12, 2025, 3:14 pm • 6 0 • view
That is also downstream of the problem that the degradation of civic education and trust in institutions has produced a population that largely does not know or care what’s at stake when a global civilizational paradigm comes undone.
mar 12, 2025, 2:59 pm • 44 2 • view
Which one could see since Reagan was Governor of California and Nixon was President, though Republicans did not really get this rolling until Reagan was elected President.
mar 12, 2025, 4:32 pm • 3 0 • view
That's exactly the point. If the participants don't care, there is little the system can do to stop it. A system is made up of people following a system. If enough people stop following the system, the system breaks down, not matter how good it was designed.
mar 12, 2025, 6:25 pm • 2 0 • view
But they are MAGA. Every last republican in congress is loving this new system. It's party-line votes for king or freedom.
mar 12, 2025, 3:43 pm • 1 1 • view
"i don't want to" sounds like a defiant petulant child that is now in charge of the household and dictating to everyone else. maybe we need to have people who want to hold office prove they are competent adults with ethics not simplistic children who just don't care
mar 12, 2025, 3:12 pm • 1 0 • view
I'd settle for "people seeking office must believe in the ability of government to do good things, and act accordingly."
mar 12, 2025, 7:40 pm • 0 0 • view
Understand the concept and don't disagree, but government dependent on 'beliefs' (even for good) isn't something I want. Ethics tests can be objective. Belief tests cannot. And yeah, I really like that whole government of, by, and for the people idea. We should keep it.
mar 12, 2025, 7:49 pm • 0 0 • view
In the CR they passed, the Congress ceded their power to stop the madness by not changing the calendar day for the rest of the session.
mar 13, 2025, 9:27 am • 2 0 • view
They want this. Everything they say and do proves how vehemently they despise liberal democracy. As usual, we just don’t believe them on their word because we’re so convinced everyone wants what we want.
mar 12, 2025, 5:55 pm • 3 1 • view
I'd argue that our first past the post voting method, along with artificial barriers we create due to our cultural distrust of government, has led to the complete paralysis of the people's representation in Congress that we see today.
mar 12, 2025, 8:10 pm • 4 1 • view
Every replier here should start their comment first with: “I called BOTH of my senators today. And I think blah blah blah…”
mar 14, 2025, 4:03 am • 3 0 • view
If the Democrats had a majority in the House and a supermajority in the Senate, things would be much different. If it wasn’t for the right-wing media ecosystem, and the normalization of Trump by MSM, he wouldn’t be president and there would be fewer right-wing extremists in Congress.
mar 12, 2025, 3:59 pm • 17 3 • view
Every time they have, they are too nice to the opposition. The opposition pulls stunts, screams, throws tantrums and the Democrats give in on some level.
mar 12, 2025, 5:32 pm • 2 0 • view
The Democrats are in a tough spot.They need swing voters and the D base. Plus, the MSM often holds Ds to a higher standard than they do Rs.
mar 12, 2025, 6:07 pm • 1 1 • view
The whole point was that the people get what the people want. And right now, almost half of the voting public wants this.
mar 12, 2025, 2:57 pm • 3 0 • view
Close. One third really, really want it. They didn't believe they'd be impacted but they wanted it enough to accept everything else. Another third did not care enough to stop it. What they did not want was NOT enough to get them into a voting booth to stop it.
mar 12, 2025, 5:02 pm • 2 0 • view
Congress has become what the the Roman Senate was at the end of the Republican period. They're just in it for the social status - and the money of course - and has no interest in governing.
mar 12, 2025, 4:13 pm • 4 0 • view
The people have also repeatedly had the power to stop this. We, as citizens, have repeatedly shown we (collectively) don't particularly care either.
mar 12, 2025, 3:05 pm • 8 0 • view
They are complicit. And i have a feeling that access to tax breaks/tax loopholes, lobbying jobs, and other handshake deals are the reason for their spinelessness.
mar 12, 2025, 11:15 pm • 1 0 • view
Money out of politics. Fairness doctrine. That would probably do it.
mar 12, 2025, 6:45 pm • 5 0 • view
We could not have gerrymandering and Citizens United. Losing those would go a long way toward a restorative balance.
mar 12, 2025, 2:52 pm • 20 1 • view
mar 12, 2025, 2:58 pm • 6 1 • view
We need recall provisions that automatically trigger votes when a court agrees that preconditions have been met. For example, if you can show, to a less-than-criminal standard of evidence, that an elected has deliberately misled their constituents or broken their oath of office, a vote is scheduled
mar 12, 2025, 3:56 pm • 3 0 • view
have you seen US courts lately
mar 12, 2025, 5:20 pm • 4 0 • view
Yeah, we need better ways to remove judges too. I like the idea of letting Bar Associations remove judges over their jurisdictions for specious reasoning. But, I've little reason to think the BAs are reliable institutions, either. Perhaps the Judges' Association should be involved... or not.
mar 12, 2025, 5:55 pm • 2 0 • view
every association or board or advisory group can be infiltrated by bad actors, is the problem.
mar 12, 2025, 7:47 pm • 1 0 • view
Bingo, that's why I think this eventually ends in the Republic breaking up
mar 12, 2025, 3:32 pm • 0 0 • view
I mean, Westminsterism would structurally encourage Republicans to attack Trump right now, because one of them could become leader within weeks and without a general election.
mar 12, 2025, 2:52 pm • 76 2 • view
Let’s not forget that Liz Truss was already out by this point into her tenure. And all she’d really done at that point is rattle the markets with her *proposed* mini-Budget.
mar 12, 2025, 4:11 pm • 3 0 • view
That would solve the problems specific to Trump, which are big, but not the authoritarianism. The problem is that voters have been sending authoritarian politicians into office for a few decades now, who have been appointing authoritarian appointees, and now they’re spread across the govt.
mar 12, 2025, 4:28 pm • 9 0 • view
On the other hand, Congress wrote the rules for presidential succession, and not unsurprisingly put the two most powerful people in Congress in slots 2 and 3, and that doesn't seem like sufficient incentive right now.
mar 12, 2025, 2:58 pm • 28 0 • view
I dunno, the UK's long line of failed PMs rather clearly demonstrated that's not much of a backstop if the majority party is determined to present incompetent leadership.
mar 12, 2025, 3:06 pm • 6 1 • view
It is rather telling that Tony Blair was prime minister for 10 years, and in the last 10 years they've had seven prime ministers.
mar 12, 2025, 3:11 pm • 5 0 • view
Yes, this is not feasible under our constitution, but the prompt was “no constitutional system,” and I think the world’s Westminsterist constitutions have a better defense against this.
mar 12, 2025, 2:59 pm • 14 0 • view
At least on paper there's no reason you couldn't use the impeachment power as a straightforward no confidence vote without any implication of illegal activity.
mar 12, 2025, 3:07 pm • 9 0 • view
True of Supreme Court appointments too, now that I think about it.
mar 12, 2025, 3:09 pm • 8 0 • view
Right? We've only ever impeached one Supreme Court justice, and he wasn't removed, but we could. It's actually a little weird that we don't.
mar 12, 2025, 3:14 pm • 8 0 • view
There are absolutely better ways to do this, constitutional systems with stronger defenses against authoritarianism, but they still hinge necessarily on the people who would use those mechanisms wanting to use them. And you can't force that with rules. You can do better, but not foolproof.
mar 12, 2025, 3:02 pm • 25 1 • view
this is true, nothing can guarantee that members of Congress use their constitutional tools to preserve democracy. I believe we can design a system that increases the odds that this happens, but it can't be guaranteed--and current system has clearly failed.
mar 12, 2025, 3:13 pm • 1 0 • view
Republicans have the power to stop this. They are choosing not to. Maybe holding people accountable and upholding the rule of law equally would make a difference?
mar 12, 2025, 3:47 pm • 11 1 • view
Blame McConnell for his reign of parliamentary exploitation, now taken to extremes by a majority of dishonorable actors in subservience to a wannabe dictator.
mar 12, 2025, 5:39 pm • 4 0 • view
Gop congress could pass a law stopping musk and demand trump return to 2017 style corrupt governance. Instead they’re ok with begging musk to stop impoundment just for certain gop districts because they’re ok with musk stealing more from democrats. Gop voters could also object if they wanted
mar 12, 2025, 2:54 pm • 6 1 • view
Trojan horse. Destroyed from within. It’s so sad.
mar 12, 2025, 2:57 pm • 6 0 • view
This has long been an issue Consider the US approach to the meaning of words in laws. Like ‘children’. I see cases where a child “will be tried as an adult”. But a child is not an adult. If you have laws that make a difference between adults and children, but can just redefine’children, then 🤷🏻♂️
mar 12, 2025, 6:38 pm • 2 0 • view
See also ‘all men are created equal’ [No, not you] 1776
mar 12, 2025, 6:39 pm • 2 0 • view
C’mon now, surely we can blame Democrats for that.
mar 12, 2025, 5:12 pm • 2 1 • view
Actually there are some things that could be done to prevent a tyranny of the majority especially in areas like Congress’ checks and balances. For example, requiring supermajorities for things like giving up Congress’ power to end Presidential emergencies and ending the 2 party system.
mar 12, 2025, 4:26 pm • 0 0 • view
1/ Design a constitutional system that is airtight against big money in any way, shape or form. Regulate the F out of industry. Prioritize the people and the planet: education, health, environment. Harden election law and get rid of electoral college. Age and term limits in Congress.
mar 12, 2025, 7:10 pm • 12 3 • view
#ConstitutionalConvention2025
mar 13, 2025, 5:45 am • 1 0 • view
No congress does not have the power to end maga have you not seen musk at work? Congress cannot stop them- only the courts can employ a separate law enforcement agency to physically stop trump and Elon. Please learn more about this so you don’t deceive your followers.
mar 15, 2025, 6:59 am • 1 0 • view
Not much to do about Congress voluntarily giving up its power, but real enforcement mechanisms for judicial impropriety are consonant with a constitutional system, and they’d help.
mar 12, 2025, 4:41 pm • 4 0 • view
The only thing I can think of is to try and make something like Congress more diverse and not just have a 2 party system. Fundamentally, the US, like the UK needs voting reform.
mar 12, 2025, 3:08 pm • 2 0 • view
Trump still winning the popular vote polls.votehub.com
mar 12, 2025, 5:01 pm • 0 0 • view
The posts by people like Fetterman confirm this.
mar 12, 2025, 2:52 pm • 8 0 • view
Multi-party would at least help
mar 12, 2025, 2:52 pm • 10 0 • view
I don't think this is actually true. If a simple majority of the House could remove a president, House Rs in swing districts would face intense pressure to do so—and might even pull the trigger because once Trump is out it's much harder for him to retaliate.
mar 12, 2025, 5:01 pm • 2 0 • view
congress is maga.
mar 12, 2025, 3:13 pm • 3 0 • view
Perhaps the third branch, the Supreme Court and all courts under it will overcome it. There's also the 2nd Amendment. Madison wrote how a federal army could be kept in check by the militia, "a standing army would be opposed [by] militia.", "..forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition".
mar 12, 2025, 3:44 pm • 1 0 • view
I'm just an old lady sitting in her living room remembering my civics studies. Checks and balances and all that. Clearly the current Congress is embracing an abdication of its power. But there are options for those of us who are not interested in a King Trump. Or we just accept and learn Russian.
mar 12, 2025, 3:47 pm • 1 0 • view
That’s exactly right. Musk and trump are burning it down but the GOP is providing matches and gasoline instead of hosing it down and grabbing the extinguishers.
mar 12, 2025, 3:34 pm • 1 1 • view
Yeah, your parties are too big. If you want congress to work you need more parties and proportional representation. The rich folk are only willing to buy off/infiltrate so many parties. They're ultimately pretty cheap and lazy.
mar 12, 2025, 2:55 pm • 23 0 • view
more parties isnt the answer to people not showing up to vote
mar 12, 2025, 3:00 pm • 15 1 • view
People don't vote if no one's going to represent them.
mar 12, 2025, 3:08 pm • 15 0 • view
people dont vote for all sorts of bad reasons and that one is no different
mar 12, 2025, 3:10 pm • 14 1 • view
No, abstaining can actually be a protest.
mar 12, 2025, 3:12 pm • 3 0 • view
lots of dumb things can be a protest and choosing not to vote is one of the dumbest
mar 12, 2025, 3:13 pm • 27 1 • view
But look at the outcome. Neither party is stopping the slide. Voting did nothing.
mar 12, 2025, 3:14 pm • 3 0 • view
it empowered trump because not enough people decided it was worth it to stop that
mar 12, 2025, 3:16 pm • 19 0 • view
and instead of people learning from their mistakes and taking responsibility, theyre lashing out looking for someone to blame for betraying them because its much easier to stomach betrayal than your own failure
mar 12, 2025, 3:17 pm • 15 0 • view
Voting did nothing because too many people chose not too participate. It's like a strike. They only work if everyone stays home from work.
mar 12, 2025, 5:29 pm • 0 0 • view
I saw a non-picket line outside a utility company once - working holding signs that said just practicing. I recommend it.
mar 12, 2025, 7:44 pm • 0 0 • view
One party is not stopping the slide because they have no power to do so. This is a consequence of people abstaining rather than affirmatively acting to prevent the other party from having all the levers of power.
mar 12, 2025, 4:00 pm • 6 0 • view
We're not talking about the Duma. I was under the impression, after watching the US Congress for the last 4 years, that opposition was still pretty powerful.
mar 12, 2025, 4:33 pm • 0 0 • view
The outcome was that GOP now has the White House and majorities in both houses of Congress, congrats
mar 12, 2025, 3:23 pm • 8 0 • view
And the Democrats are holding up paddles.
mar 12, 2025, 3:24 pm • 1 0 • view
Yet countries with proportional voting have higher voter turn out responsivegov.org/research/wha...
mar 12, 2025, 4:15 pm • 1 0 • view
while i am a fan of the transferrable vote, there are lots of other issues, four of which are listed in the document you just posted
mar 12, 2025, 4:19 pm • 0 0 • view
and those are just the structural ones
mar 12, 2025, 4:20 pm • 0 0 • view
Yes but the point was proportional voting IS an answer to people not turning out right because almost everywhere that uses it has higher turn out than FPTP systems
mar 12, 2025, 4:23 pm • 1 0 • view
youre gonna need people to turn out and vote for that oops square one
mar 12, 2025, 4:25 pm • 0 0 • view
Not having political hacks masquerading as Supreme Court Justices would be a start. If our politicians weren't afraid of their own voters—the ones they've lied to for years—we wouldn't be in this situation. And let's not let FOX News and other conservative media off the hook for similar failings.
mar 12, 2025, 2:56 pm • 16 0 • view
I think you meant to write "If our politicians were afraid of their own voters... we wouldn't be in this situation."
mar 12, 2025, 4:04 pm • 2 0 • view
No, the Rs are afraid of their own voters.
mar 12, 2025, 4:06 pm • 2 0 • view
Yeah, I find I can't conclude anything other than they're okay with all this as long as no one punches them, personally.
mar 12, 2025, 3:06 pm • 4 0 • view
Is it that they all don't want to, or are some of them just afraid to? Either way, they are complicit in the destruction of our democracy,& they will survive the installation of authoritarian rule because most if not all of them have $. The elderly & poor will suffer beyond anything we've ever seen.
mar 12, 2025, 4:47 pm • 13 2 • view
I suspect a mix. Some are all in and the ones that are not are bought or threatened/blackmailed.
mar 12, 2025, 4:52 pm • 8 2 • view
YES, and we must end rich guys being able to buy the presidency and most definitely this president!
mar 12, 2025, 9:23 pm • 3 3 • view
Well, the supreme could stop some…oh…wait..
mar 14, 2025, 10:04 pm • 7 0 • view
💯👏🌹
mar 13, 2025, 11:02 am • 0 0 • view
They are very scared of Musk and Trump
mar 12, 2025, 4:27 pm • 3 1 • view
They should be more scared of what they're allowing to happen.
mar 16, 2025, 12:15 am • 0 0 • view
They've sold their children's and grandchildren's generations to oligarchy. I think they've earned the term "cowards".
mar 12, 2025, 4:29 pm • 9 2 • view
"Cowards" is too kind. Collaborators
mar 15, 2025, 11:42 pm • 2 0 • view
Where are the MEN ? Where ?
mar 15, 2025, 11:33 pm • 0 0 • view
Congress has been worthless ever since the Gingrich era. The Senate is just a place for rich egotists to preen—as it became in Rome after the Republic died. The Founders made many mistakes—the EC was one—but one of the worst was creating this beastie rather than follow Britain’s parliamentary system
mar 12, 2025, 3:27 pm • 11 1 • view
We have so many mechanisms in place for Congress and the courts to stop this, but not a single mechanism in place to actually make them do their job of stopping it.
mar 12, 2025, 3:34 pm • 24 2 • view
PREACH!
mar 12, 2025, 4:33 pm • 1 0 • view
Arrest them all for sedition, send them straight to Gitmo and lose the paperwork
mar 12, 2025, 5:12 pm • 4 0 • view
would you say Congress or Republicans in Congress bc i have yet to hear anything terribly effective that Dems can really do (except get arrested or something)
mar 12, 2025, 3:08 pm • 3 0 • view
Do you think it’s that “they don’t care”, or do you think that it’s being allowed to happen for some type of hard reset? We have supposedly put in stop gaps within our constitution for shit like this to not happen… Yet…
mar 12, 2025, 9:53 pm • 1 0 • view
The majorities in congress are just fine with rule by executive order. One thing that would really help is for these judges having to contend with trump’s lawyers making frivolous arguments to start filing ethics complaints. “It boggles my mind” is nice in a ruling, but not enough.
mar 13, 2025, 2:38 am • 7 0 • view
Stricter campaign finance laws?
mar 12, 2025, 2:58 pm • 5 0 • view
I agree with your larger point, but if Trump was a Prime Minister, they could hold a vote of no confidence and that would end things. Impeachment is a much higher bar and much more difficult politically.
mar 13, 2025, 12:58 am • 158 4 • view
This, the US system provides particualry intense protections to the president that are not available to other leaders. It also provides extraordinary moral authority. In a parliamentary system there is also the backstop of the head of state forcing elections. They probably loose power after, but...
mar 13, 2025, 1:00 am • 12 0 • view
That's probably a one time deal, and they loose that power after. But it's there as a 'break glass in case of emergency' sort of contingency...
mar 13, 2025, 1:35 am • 3 0 • view
That and you don't have a special vote of no confidence. *EVERY* vote that had to do with finances is automatically a confidence vote. In the US 3 GOP voting against the CR in Congress would mean immediate elections. Period.
mar 13, 2025, 1:46 am • 4 0 • view
Though it promotes party loyalty every time. In the US, party loyalty is not an all weather feature. Trump has upended that.
mar 19, 2025, 2:54 pm • 1 0 • view
Yes. Everything is Linz. The rest is commentary.
mar 13, 2025, 1:00 am • 24 1 • view
I think what you're getting at is that maybe Trump wouldn't be so bad if he was a prime minister under a constitutional monarchy. Which like, maybe???
mar 13, 2025, 4:13 pm • 1 0 • view
He would be. The problem ain't the presidential system, but the lack of multi-party system.
mar 19, 2025, 2:59 pm • 0 0 • view
But the GOP would not have a leadership challenge or a vote of no confidence would they??? They are actively complicit and corrupt.
mar 13, 2025, 4:05 am • 0 0 • view
Also bsky.app/profile/bast...
mar 19, 2025, 3:00 pm • 0 0 • view
We need a "vote of no confidence" bill.
mar 13, 2025, 6:39 am • 2 2 • view
Confidence in what? When a parliamentary system dissolves a government, it doesn't dissolve the executive; it dissolves the legislature which by extension dissolves the executive since executive are drawn from Legislative,and thereby the government (except Judiciary of course).
mar 19, 2025, 2:57 pm • 1 0 • view
I don't claim to know everything, but I am capable of learning... and I do enjoy learning. Thanks. ⚘️ I do know there's a lot of folks who have no confidence in our government that seems filled with bad actors.
mar 19, 2025, 6:00 pm • 0 0 • view
Trust in government is low across the board in developed nations. US up untill very recently was functionally a better state than most of its European peers, especially in light of the 2008 financial crisis. Now all that's upended.
mar 20, 2025, 10:19 am • 1 0 • view
Yep. It now feels like financial terrorism here.
mar 20, 2025, 1:11 pm • 0 0 • view
Just because they could hold such a vote doesn't mean it would happen. They *could* do things right now and they don't. It's not the rules, it's the people who are either cowards or don't care whether their own country has democracy in name only. As long as they keep *their* jobs.
mar 13, 2025, 5:45 am • 2 1 • view
But I/C/R isn't inherently difficult; the problem is the voters are undereducated + gluttonous + lazy, and our electeds reflect this--the government IS us, and then the mechanism we're given by the Constitution isn't applied or applied properly. A car can't run with an impaired or absent driver.
mar 13, 2025, 11:05 am • 2 0 • view
Here's some basic ideas to start.https://open.substack.com/pub/rshrevepro/p/what-will-the-us-do-after-trump-and?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=4wrfos
mar 13, 2025, 2:50 am • 2 0 • view
But caring isn’t necessarily a spontaneous phenomenon. Elements of the system encourage or discourage citizen involvement.
mar 12, 2025, 3:53 pm • 1 0 • view
It's not really that they don't care as much as they don't see a problem because they're literally consuming different information. I've run out of ways to explain this. bsky.app/profile/jooc...
mar 12, 2025, 4:48 pm • 117 11 • view
Meantime DOGE and Musk are bumbling around badly enough to compromise every American's data. If this is their level of expertise, then the entire SSN database is likely already in the wild due to their criminal negligence. bsky.app/profile/jooc...
mar 13, 2025, 1:32 pm • 2 0 • view
This is the absolute lynchpin. I know tons of Trumpers. They all share my values. What they do not share are my facts.
mar 12, 2025, 8:00 pm • 13 1 • view
But I should add for my Trump people: more facts and less unconscious racism, which is what is informing their willingness to accept bad facts.
mar 13, 2025, 1:09 pm • 0 0 • view
I dunno, this one I think leans into education, critical thinking, and indoctorination(I've seen so many, "my parents taught me to be x"). The thing is, it dosen't take too much effort to realize there are two sides of a coin, and they aint lookin on the other side usually.
mar 12, 2025, 6:05 pm • 1 0 • view
The low-effort, low-information Trump voter is simply rarely ever changing the channel. That 'channel' can be Fox news, or it can be considered everything their Facebook friends are feeding them, or what they hear on the radio in their car. But it's a different information bubble ecosystem.
mar 12, 2025, 6:15 pm • 1 0 • view
.. again, we imagine them consuming everything we do and then coming to an insane, fascist conclusion - that's not what's happening. They're really just not consuming the same stuff, in the same way.
mar 12, 2025, 6:19 pm • 1 0 • view
Exactly this.
mar 12, 2025, 5:20 pm • 3 0 • view
I've fully come around to the idea that we need freedom of speech, but lying in a public forum needs to be punished like a violent crime
mar 12, 2025, 6:27 pm • 1 0 • view
This is why! They are being brainwashed over decades. I literally watched my liberal father disintegrate into a person I know longer knew. He passed in '12. He spent alot of time in Red states, because he was a caterer, & his last few years were with a country singer. youtu.be/2a8EcXk4KEM?...
mar 12, 2025, 6:54 pm • 1 0 • view
bsky.app/profile/jooc...
mar 12, 2025, 6:56 pm • 2 0 • view
Exactly.. for me it's treason.
mar 12, 2025, 7:17 pm • 1 0 • view
It starts with the media telling/showing different stories and then the algorithms are sealing the deal. But in the end, the people elected to represent us all really know, deep down, what is happening yet are so addicted to the power that they are unwilling to stop it.
mar 12, 2025, 5:40 pm • 2 0 • view
I think this is true but incomplete. I read The Atlantic and The Economist regularly and generally trust their reporting. But it’s pretty common that I read and disagree with their opinions, and reasonably common for me to think they got the facts wrong.
mar 12, 2025, 6:25 pm • 3 0 • view
You need to realize how different than the typical Trump voter you are in that pattern.
mar 12, 2025, 6:40 pm • 0 0 • view
People aren’t just consuming other sources but doing so—it seems—uncritically. And I think that suggests some pretty troubling things about their instincts, judgment, opinions, or capacities for critical thinking.
mar 12, 2025, 6:25 pm • 3 0 • view
TRUTH!!!! Couple this with intentional misinformation firehosed into our various social media platforms, & news organizations run as businesses, by/for the 1%! Our 4th Estate has fallen! Live in a fairly well-educated, reasonably affluent town without a local newspaper!!! Politics is local first!
mar 12, 2025, 5:25 pm • 38 3 • view
If you really want to, and work at it for years, you can corrupt any system. It seems.
mar 14, 2025, 5:33 pm • 1 0 • view
Especially when the leadership is bunch of racist haters seeking privilege & power over law & order and they are followed by a bunch of racist IGNORANT haters who expect they will receive privileges from der leader.
mar 13, 2025, 12:20 am • 2 0 • view
Not having one person with so much power to act unilaterally might help. But it's true that no system can prevent those in power ( eg Republicans) from changing the rules to make them less democratic.
mar 12, 2025, 7:31 pm • 3 0 • view
Parliamentary democracy works in Canada. We don’t vote for Prime Minister; it’s a bottom-up model where local votes decide which party governs. Rather than top-down with the President holding primary power.
mar 12, 2025, 7:06 pm • 40 2 • view
All it takes in this case is enough provinces electing candidates who are the equivalent of the 21st century GOP. Other parliamentary systems have been undone by bad actors following the letter but not the spirit of the law.
mar 12, 2025, 7:44 pm • 17 0 • view
Sure, it can happen but it takes a lot of bad actors to disrupt the system deliberately. More often, people tire of a particular party or another is more attractive. Unlike the US, there isn’t as much focus on the party, or identifying as a legacy and we certainly don’t worship the office of PM.
mar 12, 2025, 8:13 pm • 13 0 • view
The U.S.’s fixation of the president is an important difference. However, I’d point to Italy in 1922, Hungary in 2010 and even the U.S. now to see how quickly national sentiments can change.
mar 12, 2025, 8:21 pm • 14 0 • view
We certainly have a lot of bad players now and they are indeed disrupting the system deliberately. I wonder if Curtis Yarvis ever studied this. What we are going thru is terrifying. We could lose the entire thing, our entire democracy. And MAGATS think that's the desirable outcome. W.T.F.??????
mar 12, 2025, 9:19 pm • 1 0 • view
I don’t know if Yarvin is cited in P2025, but he is an admitted influence on Vance. His goals align with what the Trump administration is doing.
mar 12, 2025, 9:37 pm • 1 0 • view
Well the core feature is embedding a high level of civil understanding and virtue through education and public education. The democracy cannot just be people showing up for elections if it is to last.
mar 12, 2025, 5:02 pm • 6 1 • view
Indifference breeds intolerance
mar 12, 2025, 10:08 pm • 3 0 • view
One key difference in the US system is the fixed election dates can be a problem. In Canada, a non-confidence motion can force a new election. The US needs something like that. It could be that fixed elections remain, but a term could be cut into 2 or more if an unscheduled election was needed.
mar 12, 2025, 9:30 pm • 160 8 • view
A no confidence option would be great, but the country is so huge that getting anything done seems nearly impossible.
mar 12, 2025, 11:34 pm • 3 0 • view
Even if we had such a system, I doubt that this Congress would hold a vote of confidence. It may be that having a fixed election date can be our salvation.
mar 13, 2025, 12:52 am • 31 0 • view
Portugal just did this. Seems intelligent.
mar 12, 2025, 10:31 pm • 26 0 • view
Enough of Trump's actions already cross beyond merely wrongheaded and dangerous into full on illegality (literally speedrunning his first impeachment), which we do technically have a remedy for, and they aren't interested in that either.
mar 14, 2025, 9:59 pm • 3 0 • view
A parliamentary, multi-party system led to authoritarianism in Germany AND our system also produced it. However, it didn't help that our system was DESIGNED to give more power to rural areas than more populated ones because of racism/slavery. He wouldn't have won in 2016 in a straight popular vote.
mar 12, 2025, 4:07 pm • 1 0 • view
Well yeah there is. If you take out the electoral college and have direct popular vote elections. Also, if you make congressional/senate representation a true function of population too. And term limits. Then, you can also ban the ways senators and reps enrich themselves.
mar 12, 2025, 7:09 pm • 1 0 • view
And have no shame, empathy, adherence to truth or shared reality
mar 12, 2025, 11:05 pm • 1 0 • view
This is a by-product of having political parties. It's a shame the founders didn't add their exclusion into the constitution. What we have seen is "Party" being used as a wedge to break checks and balances. Basically equal branches are now colluding and unaccountable to the people.
mar 12, 2025, 8:29 pm • 10 0 • view
paging @radiofreetom.bsky.social
mar 12, 2025, 3:39 pm • 4 0 • view
Any thoughts on how make another actor care again?
mar 13, 2025, 2:16 pm • 3 0 • view
It was just all an honor system. People of dishonor can break the whole thing
mar 12, 2025, 2:54 pm • 165 10 • view
Honor and virtue.
mar 13, 2025, 2:39 am • 7 0 • view
It's kinda like the tariffs. A country's ability to win this battle will depend on its citizen's willingness to put up with the economic pressure its leaders place on them. I suspect Canadians will have more patience than Americans will, mainly because Trump has squandered so much good will.
mar 12, 2025, 4:11 pm • 2 0 • view
The only option would be a Praetorian guard, and that would be the worst option.
mar 12, 2025, 3:37 pm • 4 0 • view
I don't there is a way to design a capitalist constitutional system that resists authoritarian take overs
mar 13, 2025, 11:52 am • 20 1 • view
Agreed. The presence of way too much money in a few hands will make it aubject to corruption.
mar 14, 2025, 3:46 am • 0 0 • view
This is what keeps us up at night.
mar 12, 2025, 4:24 pm • 2 0 • view
Get money out of politics and allow Congress to work for the people. We also need term limits on the Supreme Court
mar 13, 2025, 1:16 am • 73 1 • view
💯
mar 12, 2025, 4:18 pm • 4 0 • view
Exactly! Checks and balances must be initiated or they are worthless. Laws must be enforced or you destroy your country in favour of insurrectionists and oligarchs.
mar 12, 2025, 4:50 pm • 2 0 • view
I was thinking about how people believing constantly repeated lies got us here
mar 12, 2025, 11:08 pm • 4 0 • view
From what I can see, some of the Republicans do care, but the threats to their families are making them toe the line, according to some poster. I can understand that, but I would rather quit than not defend my country. Others are brainwashed, and it will be hard for them to see the real truth...
mar 12, 2025, 7:20 pm • 2 0 • view
Constitutions, eh?! Use them or lose them
mar 12, 2025, 7:47 pm • 2 0 • view
Truth. Scary.
mar 12, 2025, 3:46 pm • 4 0 • view
and we don't, apparently
mar 12, 2025, 5:35 pm • 5 0 • view
I have had similar thoughts. Plenty of people have passively "cared" about our country and constitution but clearly not many cared enough to be active in protecting it.
mar 12, 2025, 5:21 pm • 3 0 • view
Perhaps if the constitutional systems were enforced by Terminator model 101 systems.
mar 13, 2025, 12:19 am • 3 0 • view
"A Republic - if you can keep it". Ben Franklin knew.
mar 13, 2025, 1:09 am • 2 0 • view
Well, unless they enforce the penalty for violating it. That’s not been done…. Ever.
mar 13, 2025, 1:50 am • 2 0 • view
You are right. Democracy is an idea and a choice humans make. They do not have to make that choice. I did write a book that describes how the most successful version of democracy on Earth looks and works. Hint: it's not human. "The Human Idea: Earth's Newest Ecosystem."
mar 12, 2025, 6:26 pm • 2 0 • view
mar 12, 2025, 4:44 pm • 188 25 • view
Where are torches and pitchforks?
mar 12, 2025, 7:57 pm • 1 0 • view
Oh look the Republicans got you to turn against the only people that can help.
mar 12, 2025, 10:44 pm • 3 0 • view
If angry memes make them quit, they were never gonna do anything anyway, which is what is happening. A fragile spirit, indeed.
mar 12, 2025, 11:57 pm • 1 0 • view
They just stopped the current CR from happening today. I think a level of patience is in order before taking a dump on the only people that have our best interest in mind. Unless you are a Republican. Are you a Republican?
mar 13, 2025, 12:02 am • 1 0 • view
“A level of patience?” Patience was given to Mueller. And to Biden. And to Jack Smith. And to Garland. Please shut all of the fcks up.
mar 13, 2025, 1:37 am • 1 0 • view
Kiss my ass. They were working in the structure they were given. Everyone expects magic in a non magical universe. Not one of you asshole voted for a warrior you voted for accounts which makes sense cause laws use to rule.
mar 13, 2025, 1:40 am • 2 0 • view
You sound just as weak as they do. Do you ask children to help you open your pickles?
mar 13, 2025, 1:43 am • 0 0 • view
I have 2 cats and their pickle opening skills are limited. All I am saying is we have been at this for over 50 years. White people have been fucking up progress this whole time. Stop being mad at Democrats they can't control the stupidity of white people.
mar 13, 2025, 1:47 am • 1 0 • view
Yeah, all we hear is" We can't stoop to their level" Welp, that level is steamrolling us right now and we brought this on with our perceived moral High Ground. We allowed Maga to be the loudest voice since 2016..Trump should have been defeated easily, but the Dinosaur Dems are too busy fundraising
mar 12, 2025, 5:35 pm • 4 0 • view
Doesn't work. The Revolution was largely gorilla warfare. ??????
mar 12, 2025, 6:28 pm • 0 0 • view
read the top caption
mar 12, 2025, 6:30 pm • 0 0 • view
Exactly! It’s what they count on to keep rolling over us.
mar 12, 2025, 5:10 pm • 35 2 • view
Yup! Laws are pointless if no one follows them or if people have no morals or respect for other human beings. They are just words on paper.
mar 12, 2025, 7:31 pm • 2 1 • view
And wherein the system is mostly based on the assumption that people will behave properly and respect rules simply out of ethics. The whole US concept of checks and balances is the assumption that each branch will behave and the others will do something about it if not. We see how that is going.
mar 12, 2025, 4:22 pm • 9 0 • view
Also the founders couldn't have predicted individuals like our modern billionaires and for the Supreme Court to say that money = speech.
mar 14, 2025, 10:20 pm • 9 0 • view
The founders were just as corrupt and immoral as todays politicians
mar 14, 2025, 10:24 pm • 4 0 • view
That makes zero sense. They thought of war against monarchy and theocracy. Then created a set of rules to prevent that from happening again. Were they perfect? No. Were they just as corrupt or immoral as politicians today? No way.
mar 14, 2025, 10:32 pm • 2 0 • view
I’m gonna be honest, the original voting set up of the United States was, in true republican form (active v passive citizens) was that only white men who owned property could vote. They wanted a republic, not a democracy, there is a difference. The early history of the U.S. is also VERY ugly.
mar 15, 2025, 4:12 am • 1 0 • view
Fought a war*
mar 14, 2025, 10:45 pm • 0 0 • view
they did own slaves
mar 15, 2025, 3:59 am • 7 0 • view
They were murderers and human traffickers
mar 14, 2025, 11:25 pm • 6 0 • view
#FrighteningAF
mar 12, 2025, 11:45 pm • 1 0 • view
mar 12, 2025, 3:30 pm • 3 0 • view
This is particularly so for Republican members of Congress, who have the power to restrict Trump’s illegal actions but instead sit silently as Trump takes a wrecking ball to our democracy.
mar 12, 2025, 9:32 pm • 7 0 • view
The framers never planned for an entire political party to be scared by their president.
mar 12, 2025, 3:57 pm • 3 0 • view
That was my thought when Democratic leadership refused to even consider impeaching Reagan over Iran-Contra: that for all their foresight, it didn't occur to the Founders that one day we'd just shrug the whole thing off.
mar 12, 2025, 3:19 pm • 16 0 • view
The founders did put some thought into these questions, they just couldn't come up with a good answer.
mar 12, 2025, 3:53 pm • 3 0 • view
How about an executive policy council in which every political party w/ seats in parliament elects a term limited executive member to the council? Any action taken or executive order by the E.C. must be unanimously endorsed by all members of the council. Impasses resolved by votes in legislature
mar 13, 2025, 10:35 pm • 6 0 • view
I also like the concept of the citizen draft legislature where representatives are selected in a way similar to jury duty to serve set terms.
mar 13, 2025, 10:38 pm • 2 0 • view
You're correct but I hope you're including the voters as "participants." To our everlasting shame, Trump was re-elected in 2024...as a bloc the voters didn't care enough.
mar 13, 2025, 1:22 am • 3 0 • view
Or are willing to apply the laws EQUALLY to everyone, ensure ALL people have the same BASIC human rights. America & the world is DIVERSE. We're unique yet contribute with EQUITY to be respectfully INCLUDED in society as human beings, NOT a label others put on us.
mar 12, 2025, 5:08 pm • 1 0 • view
Of course….the reason America is in this position at this point is not because of Trump…he’s just the carnival barker…and it’s not because of Republicans…they have always worked for an oligarchy…the reason America is where it is is because of AMERICANS….they VOTED for this shit.
mar 12, 2025, 5:58 pm • 45 3 • view
Sigh. Big sigh. The truth hurts.
mar 12, 2025, 7:58 pm • 0 0 • view
bsky.app/profile/nuny...
mar 12, 2025, 7:16 pm • 1 0 • view
…or DIDN’T VOTE AT ALL…hence the “Republic if you can keep it” trope
mar 12, 2025, 7:35 pm • 15 1 • view
Exactly…the only group worse than the morons who voted for these criminals are the absolutely gutless cowards who didn’t vote at all…all of us on this platform are suffering because of criminals, morons and gutless cowards…that’s the American hat trick.
mar 13, 2025, 1:31 am • 3 0 • view
Same here. “Checks and balances” depends completely on people being willing to uphold the Constitution and not just go along with one person’s wishes. We’re selling our country to the ultra wealthy.
mar 12, 2025, 3:56 pm • 5 0 • view
SCOTUS needs an ethics overhaul. Consequences for corrupt judges would help.
mar 12, 2025, 3:35 pm • 11 1 • view
My thoughts exactly.
mar 13, 2025, 1:38 am • 4 0 • view
Yup ultimately it’s just a chessboard of peoples individual feelings and power games.
mar 12, 2025, 6:12 pm • 1 0 • view
And if we look at evidence around America, we don’t care. I think all the time about how Trump was elected after he was involved and directed January 6, and when I step back, I marvel about how badly that bodes for us.
mar 12, 2025, 3:30 pm • 6 0 • view
Because fascism is just the inherent element in liberal representative constitutional democracy, that activates when people get complacent and parochial. There wasn’t any real fascism before there liberal democracy. Fascism is the passive parasite that wakes and kills the host.
mar 13, 2025, 12:50 am • 2 0 • view
Yes, this is evidenced by voters electing Trump and the 33% of people who did not vote at all.
mar 12, 2025, 3:32 pm • 3 0 • view
1. Free University Education for all citizens. 2. Department of Treasury underneath the Legislative branch instead of Executive branch. 3. U.S. Marshall service underneath Judicial branch instead of Executive Branch 4. President can be indicted for crimes while in office.
mar 12, 2025, 6:28 pm • 4 0 • view
Nailed it
mar 12, 2025, 3:45 pm • 4 0 • view
For over a hundred years, Australia has had compulsory ranked choice voting. They're doing pretty good so far.
mar 12, 2025, 3:29 pm • 10 0 • view
Sure, but the US system seems designed to manufacture apathy. Proportional representation allows for several viable parties & this means more folks can be passionate about politics & at least one of those parties. The US system has a bad and a (much) worse party, both captured by the richest.
mar 12, 2025, 3:16 pm • 25 0 • view
Also extra-constitutional nonsense like the fillibuster was which, while it's blocked a couple bad ideas, usually leads to nothing getting done and the average person saying "it's all bullshit"
mar 12, 2025, 4:35 pm • 11 1 • view
Sure, though until the fascists lose there Senate majority... not hating that one as much right now.
mar 12, 2025, 10:09 pm • 1 0 • view
This is my opinion as well. But, I never imagined it wouldn’t matter in the United States.
mar 12, 2025, 3:59 pm • 1 0 • view
There is one way to create a democracy constitutional or otherwise that is able to resist Authoritarian incursion but you have to change your mindset of the structure of your Society from Vertical as it is now to a Horizontal structured Society. A horizontally structured Society eschews privileges.
mar 13, 2025, 1:27 pm • 19 1 • view
So you are required to go through your laws and remove all those laws that grant the upper echelons of your Society. these laws are both overt and covert. For the upper echelons voices are not more significant than the those of the voices of the lower echelons.
mar 13, 2025, 1:31 pm • 12 0 • view
When you remove those laws you closer to a true Democracy as the Democracy you have at the moment is just a Faux Democracy due to all the privileges granted to the upper echelons of your Society. Two diagrams to show the differences the first is what you have now. The second is sans privileges
mar 13, 2025, 1:35 pm • 15 0 • view
So it is only the Social structure that allows Psychopaths and Sociopaths to over turn you Democracy for what it worth.
mar 13, 2025, 1:38 pm • 8 0 • view
Once you alter your mind set you will more readily move to a truer Democracy which is a step closer to a pure Democracy which requires a change of mindset about possessing things and people.
mar 13, 2025, 1:39 pm • 9 0 • view
We should've fought like the house was on fire when they started defunding education.
mar 12, 2025, 6:30 pm • 1 0 • view
All systems work great from the time that the corrupt actors of the previous system are permanently removed and right up until new corrupt actors figure out how to exploit it. Systemic change is good since no system can regulate itself ad infinitum.
mar 13, 2025, 2:03 am • 5 0 • view
Agreed!! I feel like too many Americans are helping sleepwalk us to authoritarianism.
mar 12, 2025, 4:24 pm • 3 0 • view
Multi party political system
mar 13, 2025, 2:52 pm • 2 0 • view
A Parlamentary system like in the UK...they can call a no confidence vote and change the government anytime, more flexible system with more parties that form alliances to change things.
mar 12, 2025, 4:11 pm • 15 0 • view
Yep
mar 12, 2025, 3:32 pm • 3 0 • view
While apathy may have created the climate for authoritarian incursion, what I’m witnesses now is the paralyzing fear of joining the resistance. People are desperate to keep the few resources they have. Many have gone silent. To resist, we need to share resources and build safety-net communities.
mar 13, 2025, 1:48 am • 5 0 • view
This is why a troll favourite is "no one cares", manifesting into existence the most destructive force to a democracy. Apathy.
mar 12, 2025, 6:29 pm • 6 0 • view
There is a special place in hell for people who don’t vote.
mar 12, 2025, 6:35 pm • 7 0 • view
This is the problem, but I think deep down a few might care but not enough to man up. Sometimes the threats to their families force them to hold back, or their selfishness to kiss the ring and further their careers. It’s not country first and corruption is hard to fight when there is so much of it.
mar 12, 2025, 4:35 pm • 3 0 • view
The question to them is, will they have careers in the newly installed authoritarian regime? Do you have Democrats and Republicans when people aren't allowed to live freely? If there is no voting? This is where we are headed.
mar 12, 2025, 4:50 pm • 3 0 • view
I agree, and they are cowards beaten down and probably scared of retribution. They are small spineless people who don’t care about us or the country. They are a disgrace, sending us to a dark place. Their day will come and we will rise. They will be discarded after your years and we will remember.
mar 12, 2025, 6:20 pm • 4 2 • view
Beautifully said👏👏👏
mar 12, 2025, 8:18 pm • 2 0 • view
Too bad there is not an edit feature, I noticed a typo. Lol
mar 13, 2025, 5:59 pm • 2 0 • view
it's ok...my spelling is terrible...they do need an edit feature!
mar 13, 2025, 8:09 pm • 1 0 • view
We’ve been bought to be broken up and sold off lock, stock, and barrel.
mar 12, 2025, 10:38 pm • 6 2 • view
American apathy is killing us….
mar 12, 2025, 6:26 pm • 2 0 • view
Voting in a democracy is a basic duty, so impose a small penalty for not voting. Initial result: a lot of people who dont care will vote randomly. But politicians realise that they now must engage EVERY voter. Whatever the result, it will be What.The. Actual. Majority. of people want i.e...Democracy
mar 13, 2025, 1:59 am • 21 1 • view
You're right of course, but the founders did foresee something like this and imagined armed citizens would rally around local elected officials to put down the coup. I can think of a few Governors I would follow into a fight. bsky.app/profile/illi...
mar 12, 2025, 3:33 pm • 3 0 • view
You can protect that system through appropriate punishment. Something S Korea has done multiple times and something that the USA is too afraid to do.
mar 12, 2025, 3:27 pm • 9 0 • view
Insider attack. “Call is coming from inside the house.”
mar 12, 2025, 3:24 pm • 5 0 • view
Last election the participants in the system did not seem to care that much.
mar 12, 2025, 4:56 pm • 6 0 • view
If there's no direct enforcement mechanism for upholding law once set forth by the Supreme Court, WTF are we to do besides fullon revolution?
mar 12, 2025, 5:01 pm • 5 1 • view
That’s the thing. We are the enforcement. If there was another small entity that could also be lead astray. Think of the movie “The Beekeeper”. We all are about to collectively go fucking rogue and hang a lot of motherfuckers. I want to hear their necks snap. This is how we get democracy back.
mar 12, 2025, 5:31 pm • 5 1 • view
When asked how Americans could beat cops, he said "they know it's wrong; they just don't give a shit."
mar 12, 2025, 11:45 pm • 2 0 • view
Yes. Democracy does require the participation of its citizens. 🫤
mar 12, 2025, 8:57 pm • 1 0 • view
Check out the 14th Amendment, Sec 3 just for fun…
mar 13, 2025, 2:32 am • 4 0 • view
Is it that they don’t care or just avoiding the topic because it’s scary and exhausting? (We are talking about regular people right? Not congress?)
mar 12, 2025, 11:27 pm • 4 0 • view
Or those responsible for enforcing the laws designed to protect it like Garland and Biden don't.
mar 12, 2025, 8:22 pm • 2 0 • view
Strict regulations on money and religious influence on govt. Publicly funded elections, a random element to picking candidates and compulsory participation in elections / govt. Ranked choice voting. This would go a long way.
mar 12, 2025, 6:18 pm • 4 0 • view
had anyone told me I would ever be in agreement with something David Brooks said ... but here we are, paraphrasing his words, to the effect that no really good system will hold without good people in it ack
mar 12, 2025, 9:58 pm • 4 0 • view
Thank you, yes, I coming back to this too. The whole thing falls apart when voters will accept any amount of lying/corruption/scandal in exchange for cheaper gas: authoritarian kleptocracy is just inevitable.
mar 12, 2025, 5:30 pm • 3 0 • view
People don't care because systems have been set up to make it (a) difficult to be meaningfully involved, (b) hard to understand, and (c) portrayed as "horse races" and games. Education (formal & informal & informational) & reform are needed to actually enable participatory governance.
mar 12, 2025, 5:48 pm • 9 1 • view
Which means we need to incentivize engagement.
mar 12, 2025, 5:38 pm • 2 0 • view
Yes, that's what @anneapplebaum.bsky.social has been talking about a lot. History shows they fall in line out of self preservation. So they care...just not about the country more than themselves.
mar 12, 2025, 3:13 pm • 8 0 • view
surprise!
mar 12, 2025, 3:44 pm • 3 0 • view
We need to get rid of the monied influence and we’ll get a resilient democracy.
mar 12, 2025, 5:19 pm • 6 1 • view
True! A family member was angry that Canadians were booing a US hockey team. I said that I was siding with them and asked how she would feel if the PM of Canada said he planned on annexing the U.S. as their 11th province? I said she'd probably be booing too. She had no idea what what T was saying. 🫤
mar 12, 2025, 5:08 pm • 4 0 • view
The republican party spent decades preparing their members to roll over & take whatever their leaders handed them. It's just so much easier not to think at all and feelings aren't real anyway.
mar 12, 2025, 3:16 pm • 4 0 • view
I feel strongly that the electorate often cares more than the representatives and the Interests of those two groups are often not aligned, obscured by money and influence made exponentially worse by citizens united. Until that is gone, it’s hard for me to accept your statement. The well is poisoned.
mar 12, 2025, 3:27 pm • 7 0 • view
Criminals always gonna be criminals.
mar 12, 2025, 7:35 pm • 1 0 • view
That's because no amount of legislation can make up for amoral and immoral behavior
mar 12, 2025, 3:19 pm • 17 0 • view
Absolutely right. Same reason he wasn’t convicted at impeachment. He should not be in office now. He was ineligible.
mar 12, 2025, 10:08 pm • 20 0 • view
The honor system is actually a thing.
mar 12, 2025, 3:41 pm • 9 0 • view
Yup, the founders knew it but they tried their best but no system functions when the requirement for active participation is ignored by 33% of it structure. Congress has always been the point of failure in the US system.
mar 12, 2025, 4:03 pm • 2 0 • view
This is pretty much what @normornstein.bsky.social and Mann have been saying for the last twenty years
mar 12, 2025, 4:49 pm • 8 1 • view
Democracy only works when the people want it to work, and participate in it. We have a lot of people that don't understand or care how it affects them. That's due to a lack of education. The average level of comprehension in America, is 6th grade.
mar 12, 2025, 5:08 pm • 9 2 • view
Well Germany made it impossible for the far right to rise again, so I’m sure we’ll be fine.
mar 12, 2025, 4:03 pm • 1 0 • view
Guillotines would work perfectly in this situation.
mar 13, 2025, 1:34 am • 3 0 • view
If Merrick Garland had done is job, this would never have happened. All it takes is one or two key people to drop the ball. All that's needed to correct that is a mechanism for their removal.
mar 12, 2025, 4:29 pm • 48 4 • view
And let’s not leave out Mitch McConnell
mar 12, 2025, 7:18 pm • 14 0 • view
I'd like to leave him out. In the cold in Siberia, in a small cardboard box floating across the ocean, in the desert without a paddle. Anywhere where I never have to hear that name spoken again, except in an obituary. But, point taken. It would only have taken 1 of a few, to do their job.
mar 12, 2025, 7:27 pm • 13 0 • view
It’s called getting Poppered. iep.utm.edu/popp-pol/
mar 12, 2025, 9:23 pm • 1 0 • view
Yep. Every social contract depends on good faith parties who share a commitment to upholding its terms and norms. Without that, the system collapses.
mar 12, 2025, 3:38 pm • 28 0 • view
This is it. The system has been there, but the electorate has for the past few elections put more and more people into the system who either don’t car or actively want to see the system fail (to their presumed advantage). 😡
mar 12, 2025, 4:11 pm • 8 1 • view
After an entire lifetime of assuming the system has worked for most people, once a billionaire breaches the system, they all pour in to aquire more "bennies" as The People's expense. Down with that 👎
mar 13, 2025, 6:46 pm • 0 0 • view
You get what you vote for: both the best and the worst thing about democracy
mar 12, 2025, 4:06 pm • 1 0 • view
We probably need a way to recall senators and representatives faster. Two weeks from petition to vote, tops. Force them to care.
mar 12, 2025, 2:55 pm • 13 0 • view
some no confidence mechanism for sure
mar 12, 2025, 3:21 pm • 12 0 • view
yes, id like that birthday present early. along with some kind of retroactive ranked choice voting. for everything.
mar 12, 2025, 3:46 pm • 10 0 • view
oh that I had that magic wand.
mar 12, 2025, 3:50 pm • 5 0 • view
🪄
mar 12, 2025, 3:54 pm • 2 0 • view
I truthfully think in some way or other all politicians are schisters when the opportunity comes. We have never seen it so out in the open before. I think dems are in no way as bad as the MAGAs but who knows what can happen when one group gets away with everything that the dems could follow suit.
mar 12, 2025, 6:51 pm • 1 0 • view
You and me both. Apathy & ignorance, particularly willful ignorance, led us here.
mar 12, 2025, 5:49 pm • 2 0 • view
Madison, fed 48: ‘Will it be sufficient to mark, with precision, the boundaries of these departments, in the constitution of the government, and to trust to these parchment barriers against the encroaching spirit of power?"
mar 12, 2025, 3:14 pm • 19 0 • view
That’s exactly what the framers discussed at the constitutional debate in Philadelphia in 1787. Be
mar 12, 2025, 5:54 pm • 4 1 • view
As Ben Franklin said,”A Republic, if you can keep it.” Democracy dies in ignorance and apathy.
mar 12, 2025, 3:37 pm • 9 0 • view
Education, and penalties for lying as fact by journos must be the cornerstone of democracy in order to stop authoritarians,kleptos and traitors.
mar 14, 2025, 4:08 am • 0 0 • view
Start by teaching it in schools. Make democracy cool instead of bullying marginalized Americans.
mar 12, 2025, 3:01 pm • 6 0 • view
So many people have apathy because it’s a system they take for granted. Don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.
mar 12, 2025, 6:36 pm • 2 0 • view
And it’s like wake up assholes! Trust me! You really don’t want this system gone bc it will be very hard to bring back!!
mar 12, 2025, 8:35 pm • 2 0 • view
EVERYBODY - INCLUDING #MAGA - MUST WAKE UP! #SEXOFFENDER #CONVICT #Trump is HURTING EVERYONE-AND EVERY FAMILY! #Grocery Prices RISING! #Pensions and #401s FALLING! #SocialSecurity and #Medicaid CUTS! Good People Losing Jobs and Paychecks-For NO Good Reason! NOBODY VOTED FOR ANY OF THIS! 🇺🇸 🗽
mar 12, 2025, 3:36 pm • 8 1 • view
americans became complacent, like well fed cattle.
mar 12, 2025, 6:12 pm • 18 0 • view
or are exhausted and broken from working working working to barely make ends meet
mar 12, 2025, 7:37 pm • 15 0 • view
Yup
mar 12, 2025, 4:22 pm • 3 0 • view
Oh, they care. They just don’t care about the people they represent they care about themselves and have backed themselves into a corner because they sold their souls to attain the position they hold.
mar 12, 2025, 3:11 pm • 2 0 • view
I think the trouble is, we live longer. When we only lived to 40, 50, 60….not enough time for crime.
mar 12, 2025, 7:12 pm • 5 0 • view
Sadly, I'm afraid you are right.
mar 12, 2025, 5:33 pm • 1 0 • view
I’ve thought about that too. We’re in trouble. The GOP is totally corrupted and there is no way to stop the wannabe dictator.
mar 13, 2025, 3:11 am • 31 0 • view
There are plenty of good ways to do it. FFS. Make SERIOUS effort to actually look at other constitional systems. Your country is NOT the whole world. No coup happening in UK, NZ, AU, Canada, france, germany. South korea coup quickly averted and pres jailed.
mar 12, 2025, 6:33 pm • 6 0 • view
How are we gonna do that NOW? At this moment? Do you have a time machine?
mar 12, 2025, 10:36 pm • 2 0 • view
There also needs to be set of fixes to prevent it. Consider every idea from everywhere. Otherwise, people will not be motived to try hard enough to do it, and coup is forever. Here is how www.bbc.com/future/artic...
mar 12, 2025, 10:50 pm • 5 0 • view
Just becuase one guy who only knows one constitution can't think of how fix it does not mean nobody else in the world can't either. The original US constitution is over 200 years old.
mar 12, 2025, 10:55 pm • 4 0 • view
There isn't one. I've been thinking about this for years.
mar 12, 2025, 3:45 pm • 4 0 • view
Humans do the same thing over and over again and call it progress
mar 12, 2025, 8:07 pm • 2 0 • view
Yea. And it is clearer to me, that while they sometimes still use the word "democracy" Trump voters / MAGA actually were willing to give the actual democracy up because it was looking too DEI for them. They don't care either and think if we just got on the program we would be happier too.
mar 16, 2025, 5:14 pm • 1 0 • view
That's why I've grown increasingly pessimistic about the future. A section of the country has decided they would rather have a racist dictatorship than have a democracy that they have to share with "those people." And the Constitution doesn't provide any guardrails once that number gets too large.
mar 12, 2025, 5:40 pm • 1 0 • view
“If you can keep it” was not such a throwaway line
mar 12, 2025, 4:39 pm • 4 0 • view
the authors of the constitutional system couldn't have anticipated: ① Donald Trump 2017/Donald Trump 2025 ② Mitch McConnell/John Thune ③ Paul Ryan/Mike Johnson voters are dumb.
mar 13, 2025, 2:46 am • 4 0 • view
... Term limits on congress. Bring in fresh perspectives and prevent or dismantle/dissolve any possible 'cult-like' build-ups.
mar 12, 2025, 6:25 pm • 3 0 • view
It may need to get so bad before the people (not congress) are forced to realize their power. Drump helped us see so many areas in the constitution that need changes. Maybe there should be other ways of making changes if the 51+% majority party is overlooking the obvious deficiencies.
mar 12, 2025, 6:16 pm • 1 0 • view
Indeed, the design of checks-and-balances was premised on each branch jealously guarding its powers -- especially Congress, and its "power of the purse." The Republicans long ago lost "norms" and unitary party government no longer has Constitutional guardrails if they don't want them.
mar 12, 2025, 2:56 pm • 14 0 • view
Sad but true and they’ll care eventually, but they’ll only care when it affects them financially or otherwise. When they cut Social Security Medicare and Medicaid, they’ll start to care. When their kids can’t go to school, they’ll start to care. Be patient it’s coming.
mar 12, 2025, 10:31 pm • 20 0 • view
Political apathy and lack of basic education destroys the point of democracy.
mar 12, 2025, 3:27 pm • 3 0 • view
The system should be designed to have a citizen jury who change every month (randomly chosen) who can nominate leaders that then go for election/nominations. They can also propose changes to bills/executive rules and have budget to advertise why a bill/rule is bad/good so trust in govt can increase.
mar 12, 2025, 6:45 pm • 6 0 • view
Cc: voters
mar 12, 2025, 4:15 pm • 4 0 • view
Too many seem to just go about their lives unaware and uncaring of what's happening around them. Could be too stressed or tired from providing so any down time is doing something other than news (actual news). Just guessing. People get complacent in their rut.
mar 12, 2025, 4:32 pm • 2 0 • view
47’s enablers are holding all the cards. The ones we would have thought of as ethical in the past are almost worse than him. They are letting it happen because they are chicken shits and apparently they all have bone spurs.
mar 12, 2025, 6:57 pm • 15 0 • view
IOW politics is not a design problem. It's political.
mar 12, 2025, 3:06 pm • 8 0 • view
It would be nice to have a military coup. Our armed forces are mostly immigrants after all!
mar 12, 2025, 11:12 pm • 2 0 • view
Authoritarian democratic Democracy perhaps? If such a thing.
mar 13, 2025, 3:45 am • 0 0 • view
Those who do care that much must SHOW (not tell) those who don't why caring is important, making caring a positive reinforcing. Show SHOW why love is always better.
mar 13, 2025, 7:52 pm • 0 0 • view
Or do not understand how it is SUPPOSED TO WORK
mar 12, 2025, 6:11 pm • 2 0 • view
The attorney general and head of the FBI shouldn’t be appointed by the president. Maybe they should be elected federal offices?
mar 12, 2025, 2:55 pm • 97 1 • view
I look at who gets elected state attorneys general and county sheriff in a lot of places, and it does not make me think directly electing the justice system will fix these problems
mar 12, 2025, 4:48 pm • 1 0 • view
Congress needs their own investigative arm so they don't need to rely on the FBI.
mar 12, 2025, 3:15 pm • 0 0 • view
I think this is just end-running to the same problem. Presumably the AG and President would run on 1 ticket. Congress is a separately elected branch and can remove the president. They just don't care
mar 12, 2025, 3:52 pm • 3 0 • view
The presidency should not exist. The legislature should hire and fire individual managers for individual departments.
mar 12, 2025, 3:07 pm • 1 0 • view
The Founders created an elected tyrant in waiting, and they were idiots and fucking assholes for doing so.
mar 12, 2025, 3:08 pm • 0 0 • view
Same for Supreme Court justices .. maybe should be elected? 🤔
mar 12, 2025, 3:04 pm • 70 1 • view
Our state judges are elected and for decades the idea of switching to "merit selection" has come up regularly. A judge I know said about that, "Merit selection sounds great right up until the moment you start asking who decides who has merit."
mar 12, 2025, 3:18 pm • 4 0 • view
At least some God damn term limits 🙄
mar 12, 2025, 3:07 pm • 115 1 • view
Yes!!!!
mar 12, 2025, 4:26 pm • 0 0 • view
The end is inevitable when so much power is in the hands of so few unprincipled men who want an RV, or gambling debts paid off.
mar 12, 2025, 3:16 pm • 77 1 • view
A pool of term-limited justices. The ones who will sit for a case or a series of cases will be randomly selected right before the case begins.
mar 12, 2025, 4:14 pm • 2 0 • view
Might be worse
mar 12, 2025, 4:20 pm • 2 0 • view
like this? apnews.com/article/wisc...
mar 12, 2025, 3:54 pm • 5 0 • view
😢
mar 12, 2025, 3:56 pm • 1 0 • view
Way I read the Constitution, the SCOTUS can be tweaked by Congress. Be a great court case for Gorush the Originalist to twist himself into an intellectual puzzle. Current Congress has abdicated their role for power.
mar 12, 2025, 4:19 pm • 0 0 • view
Careful with that. The current Congress could change the court in ways you definitely won’t like
mar 12, 2025, 8:45 pm • 0 0 • view
I am aware of that but with doofy doo in power that institution is going to get worse
mar 12, 2025, 9:18 pm • 0 0 • view
That would just be a more direct way for the Koch bros to choose justices.
mar 12, 2025, 6:32 pm • 1 0 • view
No, the plan was that they wouldn’t be politicians depending on being popular. Having to be confirmed by the Senate was probably considered enough of a brake on a rogue president. We have a unique set of circumstances here where the Congress has given up all power and duties to a cult leader.
mar 12, 2025, 8:42 pm • 0 0 • view
Texas elects its supreme court members and it only seems to helps the far-right freak system… it means you can demagogue a court seat, and it's a lot harder to respond to demagoguery with "well, you're good at your job" than with a president, since people understand what a judge does less clearly.
mar 12, 2025, 3:20 pm • 7 0 • view
Maybe not ... will end up becoming pay to play again I guess 🤔 Thanks @fripperskitter.bsky.social bsky.app/profile/frip...
mar 13, 2025, 1:30 pm • 1 0 • view
For one thing, you don’t treat the executive as quasi-regal. More No. 10 Downing St. - less White House.
mar 12, 2025, 3:51 pm • 5 0 • view
For one thing, you don’t treat the executive as quasi-regal. More No. 10 Downing St. - less White House.
mar 12, 2025, 3:14 pm • 7 0 • view
Exactly so. The breadth of executive power in the US (even pre-Trump) is shocking to someone who has experienced the Westminster system. It is so open to corruption.
mar 12, 2025, 3:26 pm • 5 0 • view
Yes! And ordinary voters rarely care that much. Now a narrow majority of their representatives don't either.
mar 12, 2025, 4:26 pm • 3 0 • view
Turns out that a government where positions of power are elected doesn't work that great when people that run for election are either dumb, evil, rich, or a combination. How to ensure only well meaning and capable people run? Maybe much more limiting requirements?
mar 12, 2025, 5:20 pm • 4 0 • view
It requires vigilant education surrounding subversion tactics using our system against us
mar 12, 2025, 4:14 pm • 1 0 • view
Too many folks are focused on party titles (rep vs dem vs mag) and not on behaviors and strategy. That’s more valuable info than a focus on parties. There are a lot of blurred lines re party affiliation. Depravity is the culprit.
mar 12, 2025, 8:06 pm • 2 0 • view
It would have to be a massive collaborative effort that centers the humanities and logic over capital and competition. That’s not to say we ignore STEM, either. The dual party system would also need to become defunct, as it not longer meets the needs of all citizens (did it ever?)
mar 12, 2025, 8:01 pm • 2 0 • view
Are “the people” really participants in the system? Maybe representative delegation is a tired thing.
mar 12, 2025, 6:19 pm • 1 0 • view
Yeah, I realized when Bush was president and I was coincidentally reading HLA Hart. Such an UH OH moment. But if I'd gone around screaming this to people then or during the Obama administration, or even when Trump was first elected--people would have called me crazy. I know this because they DID.
mar 12, 2025, 11:29 pm • 36 2 • view
i hated bush with a fury and the trump came along and made him look like just a goofy lil guy. the failure of our protests to stop that war hurt and i couldn’t believe bush got a second term.
mar 13, 2025, 4:30 am • 13 0 • view
Yeah, that was one of my worst days in reaction to US politics—the day he won the second term…until Trump came along. After that, they were all bad days.
mar 13, 2025, 4:35 am • 3 0 • view
i made a t-shirt with a picture of bush and “not my president” stenciled on it. ah the good ol days
mar 13, 2025, 4:38 am • 3 0 • view
God, it was GRIM. What’s blowing my mind now is everything I thought ‘oh shit!’ about in the 2000s is actually HAPPENING now. I was doing ‘oh shit!’ about the Nazis and misogynists on reddit in like 2010. My husband was always trying to calm me down…now he’s like ‘oh, honey, I cannot reassure you.’
mar 13, 2025, 4:40 am • 3 0 • view
i recorded bush speeches on cassette and mixed them with noise from circuit bent toys and tape loops and i think i still have those cassettes somewhere. with an episode of art bell on the flip side 🤣
mar 13, 2025, 4:45 am • 1 0 • view
Excellent! I was having nervous breakdowns the whole time because I wanted to have kids, then I had one, and just spent the whole time freaking out about climate change in the postpartum period, LOL. I have spent my life doing hopeful things white knuckling the ominous feeling. Life in the USA!
mar 13, 2025, 4:51 am • 1 0 • view
Resist that instinct. While Bush isn't as bad as Trump, he was a monster. His Presidency set the stage for Trump.
mar 13, 2025, 9:38 am • 8 0 • view
Reagan was the first sign (but not the genesis) that the train was leaving the tracks. The root cause is baked in - exceptionalism is the accelerant ! 250 yrs is a reasonable run 🤷🏼♂️.
mar 13, 2025, 11:46 am • 6 0 • view
What was ‘exceptional’ about the USA —of course not the only place like this—is when it successfully put restraints on government for individuals, and had more open membership. The democracy part was always weaker, tho strengthened over time—but that was a main thing that caused a fascist reaction.
mar 13, 2025, 12:32 pm • 3 0 • view
The exceptionalism is 80 internal & 20 external. Some of it is deserved but the over expressed self adulation is unhealthy esp when combined with insularity leading to unhinged & aggressive degradation of norms - viz the post shame post truth eventuality of fascistic capture. Sad.
mar 13, 2025, 8:57 pm • 0 0 • view
I suspect the exceptionalism is CAUSED by a certain worldview or habit of thought linked to insularity, aggression, etc. (plus a false reading of our history) rather than itself the main cause of the stupidity, aggression, etc. The exceptionalism also has a function—to motivate and also to blind.
mar 13, 2025, 9:35 pm • 2 0 • view
IMO it’s a bit more circular. If you believe (or are told) you are exceptional … why bother doing anything to improve or gain even more knowledge ? Net result is a dumber citizenry that quickly fills the Dunning Kruger cohort to bursting ! At that point they become very useful to demagogues. Sad
mar 14, 2025, 6:05 am • 1 0 • view
If you're talking about Americans--I don't get it. Never has a culture been more obsessed with self-improvement.
mar 14, 2025, 5:22 pm • 0 0 • view
True @ 50,000ft it is an uber trait. Getting closer you find: 1. the Resigned - who have realised the deck is stacked against them & will complain or lash out, 2. the ShowPonies - who like standing front of full length mirrors, and 3. the Wokestars - credible individuals but the smallest cohort.
mar 15, 2025, 3:35 am • 1 0 • view
I wasn’t so much thinking about how to evaluate the USA from a distance but more how to stop bad things. Probably only been in striking distance of democracy for 65 years, tops. I don’t know of any real evidence for historical determinism or inevitability so I do not think we know what will happen.
mar 13, 2025, 12:29 pm • 1 0 • view
Yep. Reagan really helped accelerate the anti-intellectual train in the GOP and Bush helped it break the speed of sound.
mar 13, 2025, 12:16 pm • 7 0 • view
oh yeah, that hatred will never die lol. my first election was in 2000 and it was stolen from me. and i was holding my nose to vote for gore
mar 13, 2025, 9:46 am • 1 0 • view
Good. There's been a lot of people who have been in the habit of sanitizing the Bush Presidency because Trump is so bad. This is huge mistake because it lets Bush off the hook for all the terrible things he did.
mar 13, 2025, 9:49 am • 2 0 • view
oh i noticed that start when he came out as a painter. it started making him seem sympathetic and goofy to people and i was like 😔
mar 13, 2025, 9:52 am • 2 0 • view
Yep. And too many Democrats were too willing to go along with it.
mar 13, 2025, 9:53 am • 2 0 • view
“cool cool cool we’re gonna forgive the iraq war now?” of course america doesn’t care about war crimes
mar 13, 2025, 9:57 am • 0 0 • view
It's difficult to care about a system in which accountability for corruption is notably absent.
mar 12, 2025, 3:58 pm • 1 0 • view
And it has been, for DECADES.
mar 12, 2025, 4:04 pm • 2 0 • view
It is not the authoritarians. It is the money. Think about the flow of money into politics. Big money, in particular. Assign labels and characteristics. Far Left - will tax wealth, Center Left - might tax wealth, Center Right, Far Right - won't tax wealth Big money rejects the far left
mar 12, 2025, 7:38 pm • 154 10 • view
So when money controls elections, is given the status of protected free speech by the gormless fnckwits of SCOTUS (When in hell is money "free?" - and I can answer that too!), the Center Left contests the election against everyone to the Right, and the Left has no voice at all. People SEE that!
mar 12, 2025, 7:38 pm • 45 4 • view
Their votes do not change the fact that they are taxed and the wealthy get breaks and own the media. Their votes cannot get them the government they want because they do not have enough money to be heard over the sound of millions, now billions, of dollars.
mar 12, 2025, 7:38 pm • 45 6 • view
Money is neither Free, nor Speech. Real money represents work done; limited by the laws of Thermodynamics. OUR money now represents debt-with-interest; limited by our gullibility. Our civilization is well over 300 Trillion dollars in the hole (not counting environmental debt),
mar 12, 2025, 7:38 pm • 23 1 • view
and we are still digging like maniacs. When the laws are applied to money- Ownership cannot make money (profit) -TANSTAAFL Money cannot be a store of value - (Rust never sleeps) These laws destroy nations that ignore them and would
mar 12, 2025, 7:38 pm • 10 1 • view
prevent the existence of billionaires; they would prevent the existence of the massive piles of money that control our governments and our lives. Inherent in them is the requirement that governments must issue and control the amount of money that our societies are using.
mar 12, 2025, 7:38 pm • 18 2 • view
Which means that Keynes and Kelton are correct. Our taxes are not the source of the money our governments use. So why do we HAVE taxes? In a Capitalist economy, their real purpose is to *destroy* money, to prevent the wealth that can buy a law from ever accumulating. So who should be taxed?
mar 12, 2025, 7:38 pm • 26 1 • view
If you follow my pinned thread you will find links to places where you can buy my book. Do not buy it before the 15th of March - we are boycotting Amazon and Bezos. bsky.app/profile/bjch...
mar 12, 2025, 7:38 pm • 18 1 • view
Was just gonna comment that. 👍🏻💯
mar 12, 2025, 8:29 pm • 5 0 • view
Billionaires are killing us.
mar 12, 2025, 8:01 pm • 1 0 • view
Incorrect money is just a unit of measure youtu.be/TDL4c8fMODk
mar 13, 2025, 2:31 am • 0 0 • view
Measuring what? I went to some trouble to prove this for anyone who troubles themselves to read my book. It is, in fact, quite simple, and it has very little impact on the operation of MMT in the end, as it demands that the government controls and creates the money we use.
mar 13, 2025, 6:09 am • 1 0 • view
Basically, it makes it clear that the limit is "the work available to the nation issuing the currency." This reflects the limits that both Kelton and Keynes describe, but it makes the reasoning explicit, and usable by Engineers.
mar 13, 2025, 6:09 am • 1 0 • view
Hi there! I'm curious—who exactly do we owe this $300+ trillion to? And who's responsible for collecting it? It's interesting to think about why we haven't seen any action on this yet. 😊
mar 13, 2025, 1:54 am • 1 0 • view
Consider that money is created as debt with interest, while interest is money that hasn't been created by someone else borrowing it into existence yet. Consider that the creation of money has to be justified by the transfer of work into the national economy,
mar 13, 2025, 8:03 am • 0 0 • view
but it is instead borrowed to pay rent to owners. Overall, we owe it to the owning class, future citizens, and the bankers who create our debt-backed-bullsh!t-bucks,
mar 13, 2025, 8:03 am • 0 0 • view
and it is a debt that must never be paid because if we did THAT there would be no money at all. So, no, there is no action on this. Borrowing is always from our future selves
mar 13, 2025, 8:03 am • 1 0 • view
This begs the question, why is there interest on all that debt? There is *now* no way that the nonsense we are constantly told about our money is useful, and yes, that implies that there was a way in previous eras.
mar 13, 2025, 8:03 am • 0 0 • view
Free speech allows the guy who owns the Public Address system in the Town Square to bellow at will.
mar 12, 2025, 8:01 pm • 0 0 • view
💯 Having this conversation about democracy, authoritarianism, oligarchy, the tech hoes, etc., without talking about capitalism is absurd.
mar 12, 2025, 9:35 pm • 3 0 • view
This. Limit the amount of donations a person/grouo/company can donate . Implement PROPERLY…. Problem goes away.
mar 12, 2025, 8:00 pm • 0 0 • view
They reject anything that might take a penny out of their pocket.
mar 13, 2025, 1:18 am • 1 0 • view
This was discussed in an after election forum with Democratic leadership. Stop going after business or coming off as anti business. And many other things. It would be great if the party followed many of the super common sense suggestions.
mar 12, 2025, 9:23 pm • 1 0 • view
Thank you Citizens United…how I hate it
mar 12, 2025, 9:43 pm • 2 0 • view
The system was set up as an Honor System, which actually does, or at least did, work when honorable people were heading it*. Once honor, truth, education, and stone cold facts were tossed out the window, this is how we got here. *Hell, even Nixon stepped down for the good of the country!
mar 20, 2025, 6:52 pm • 0 0 • view
I believe the system was set up under The Honor System. Once people with zero honor were allowed to grab a seat, this is what we get.
mar 12, 2025, 4:14 pm • 2 0 • view
Yes. The “participants” in that system do not actually care that much at all, in fact.
mar 12, 2025, 5:28 pm • 2 0 • view
Yes. Our system relies on people who care, who are willing to obey laws, who empathize.
mar 12, 2025, 3:38 pm • 3 0 • view
That's been the whole story since the second Obama administration, when the right well and truly gave up on democracy.
mar 12, 2025, 3:23 pm • 4 0 • view
The only way, in my opinion, is to have a mandate to consider the constitution a living document that must be reviewed and updated every 20 years through a constitutional congress. The members of the constitutional congress every 20 years cannot be current representatives, nor can they 1/
mar 12, 2025, 4:40 pm • 3 0 • view
have been representatives in the previous 10 years. The constitutional congress mandate cannot be removed and there needs to be outside enforcement (like the UN) and consequences for those who are responsible for the congress if they do not complete the process. /end
mar 12, 2025, 4:40 pm • 4 0 • view
That's a big part of why I'm an anarchist. The power held by a small group or even a single individual is the problem. And anarchy isn't "saying fuck it. There's no point in trying" rather it's saying that there is a way to prevent power being isolated to the top of a hierarchy.
mar 12, 2025, 5:24 pm • 7 0 • view
The founders expect that those who are entrusted with authority have some sense of honor and loyalty to the republic. The GOP has invalidated these expectations! GOP CRIME is the GOP NORM!
mar 12, 2025, 3:53 pm • 3 0 • view
I agree. Their only sense of loyalty is to money, and the new authoritarian regime that is being installed. They care about our democracy, only in so far as how they can dismantle it.
mar 12, 2025, 4:53 pm • 1 0 • view
To keep our democracy intact, we must protect it from bad actors in the government, regardless of the branch of government. This is why we have checks and balances. Currently, we have a bad actor as president, a complicit majority in Congress, and unfair attacks on judges that rule against Trump.
mar 12, 2025, 3:18 pm • 7 0 • view
But so many DO CARE! I guess the question in this democracy "experiment" is how many have to care, how much, in what way, to stop this runaway train
mar 12, 2025, 5:01 pm • 1 0 • view
An authority based culture and the truth is based on consensus......the consensus is crumbling.
mar 12, 2025, 9:50 pm • 2 0 • view
That's why Republicans have worked so hard to ensure that voting isn't mandatory for example.
mar 12, 2025, 3:01 pm • 3 0 • view
It's always been an authoritarian constitution—it grants powers of coercion to a political class. It's bad that those powers are currently being monopolized, but the real problem is that they even exist for anybody to hold.
mar 12, 2025, 3:32 pm • 4 0 • view
well, we, meaning white men were arrogant enough to believe we wouldn't fall victim to a constitutional crisis/dictatorship, that somehow we'd "be better..." As if Nixon scandal, & others weren't enough "warning shots." Forgetting that descendants of countries/govts that had these very same issues
mar 12, 2025, 10:28 pm • 2 0 • view
It's too bad we don't have a system of a no-confidence vote, toppling the govt in power, and requiring a new one to be formed.
mar 12, 2025, 4:33 pm • 4 0 • view
I've thought this, too. You could probably make checks and balances more robust to a degree, but if nobody or almost nobody has the will to enforce them...
mar 12, 2025, 3:51 pm • 7 1 • view
Oh god, I have been jumping up and down on that point forever. The system simply won't survive unless a substantial majority of the voters are willing to place democracy ahead of self-interest at critical moments.
mar 13, 2025, 12:20 am • 122 4 • view
And that won't happen without widespread misery. This country is reactionary and incapable of any positive action without mass suffering first. We will all steam to death in this frog pot while this is all being normalized unless the heat is raised rapidly to drive home what's happening.
mar 13, 2025, 1:18 am • 77 2 • view
I don't think it's on the voters. The DNC has even been squashing progressive Democrat incumbents who have popular support. Who we could even vote for is being limited by the party. They ran a Kennedy heir with Buttigieg policies against Ed Markey, a guy who has been popular and winning since 2013.
mar 13, 2025, 11:28 am • 19 0 • view
Sorry, who is “they” in this example? The party ran a primary that Markey won easily. Are you against primaries?
mar 13, 2025, 4:23 pm • 0 0 • view
The "they" is the DNC who throw a lot of money and PR into challenging people like Markey all over the country. In Massachusetts, Markey won easily but other states had incumbents challenged by corporate-aligned Dems who got all the PR and money.
mar 13, 2025, 6:22 pm • 0 0 • view
I'm not against primaries at all when the incumbent is unpopular. Like Joe Biden. I get that we didn't have time, but that's entirely on the DNC again for propping Biden up AGAIN instead of making him stick to one term. But they would have squashed progressives like in 2016 and 2020 anyway.
mar 13, 2025, 6:26 pm • 1 0 • view
And that's just where I live. The last election was a desperate one for the party and the DNC poured money into challenging their own popular incumbents to put people more appealing to the center-right in the running, but nobody on the right wants a dem and no progressive wants their people replaced
mar 13, 2025, 12:00 pm • 10 0 • view
Lead in the water and gutting the education system play the long game
mar 12, 2025, 7:56 pm • 3 0 • view
The informal guardrails of liberal democracy are just as important as the words in constitutions, statutes, parliamentary procedures, and court rulings! Political culture has to remain healthy in order for a liberal democracy to function correctly
mar 12, 2025, 8:20 pm • 5 0 • view
I’ve been thinking about how removed the general public is from the history of WW2 . Or history in general and it scares the heck out of me!
mar 12, 2025, 3:25 pm • 4 0 • view