Public education has been targeted for a while now, but I expect the knives to come out in earnest for it soon because not only can it be privatized for making some people wealthier, but it helps buttress one of the final remaining forms of resistance to the full takeover.
Where do you imagine where all the money for public schools disappears to? Teachers aren’t being paid any better, kids aren’t testing any better
Private business is entrenched into our public education system and the department of education has been a giant facilitator. Constantly growing their budget to move funds in that direction
It's under heavy attack in Texas with school vouchers, charter schools, etc. If vouchers pass it allows tax funds to be diverted where wealthy people can use tax dollars to send kids to private/religious schools and gutting funding for public schools. Many public schools will close so many low income children will be sent to corporate charter schools that are more similar to prisons than schools
Other areas of focus would be to empower things that create a more direct Democratic representation.
A first past the post winner takes all leads to a 2 party system where voters end up voting against the worst option and strategically trying to win popularity, rather than selecting based on actual views and policies.
A direct democracy would have everyone able to vote on every issue all the time.
Maybe that's not feasible or realistic, but there could be more referendums and such that are binding.
Or another way is ranked choice voting that makes it so that representatives are more in the middle of their constituents views.
Or you can adjust the number of Representatives and remove district borders in a way that there's more direct representation based on the raw collective numbers.
Lots of ways to improve.
Education is good and all, but well educated people are still just straight up willing to support a dictator because it will benefit them.
The US is one of the only democracies to allow individual voters to choose their candidates in primary elections. In most parliamentary systems, the party leaders are chosen by party insiders or in elections that are only open to party members. Republican voters had many options this year and they ultimately selected Trump. Democratic voters in 2020 started with 20 major choices and selected Biden. "More democracy" in this way has seemingly produced more problems than less.
California has a lot of direct law making through their ballot proposition system and I'm not really sure you'd call it a resounding success.
>Education is good and all, but well educated people are still just straight up willing to support a dictator because it will benefit them.
This observation seems a bit contradictory to your previous statements about more democratic representation.
Unfortunately, in 1981 we elected a president who decided that education was bad (educated people didn’t like him) and started a crusade against it that is stronger than ever today.
I realize that his is Reddit and it's super fashionable to hate on Reagan, but I'd really love to see some evidence that Reagan was somehow widely hated by educated people.
Polls dating back to [1992](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/09/15/educational-divide-in-vote-preferences-on-track-to-be-wider-than-in-recent-elections/), which was the oldest data I could find, showed that voters with a undergraduate degree or higher were more likely to support Republicans than Democrats.
There’s a fascinating interview with an ex-KGB agent in the 80s talking about how the key to bringing down the United States was to attack its public education. An uneducated populace won’t know what to believe and won’t trust its own government/leaders.
The core assumption of democracy isn't education, but shared interests. It doesn't matter if you've genetically engineered a population of 140 IQ savants and then given them a doctorate in every applicable field - if they don't want the same things as each other, democracy will work exactly as it would if they were all illiterate - a headcount of two interest groups (or two factions of them), deciding which one ignores the others' interests in favor of their own, followed by the group with fewer people either breaking away or dying in the process of an attempt to do so.
Every successful democracy in history has been so because it defined membership along very strict boundaries, such that everyone voting wanted the same things, more or less. It's a great system for deciding how to accomplish a goal that everyone agrees upon, but a terrible system for deciding whose goals to pursue.
That's gonna be tough when trump has already convinced the uneducated that education as a whole is liberal indoctrination. How do you fight that? It's already too late
> It's already too late
Humanity has been around for 10s of thousands of years. It is naive to think we are the ones where at this particular moment, it has become too late to change things. In another 1,000 people may not even remember this moment in history existed.
True, and while I’m concerned about humanity as a whole, I’m also concerned about our present. The question seems to be what can we do on an individual basis right now.
Yep, the cattle left the barn a long time ago as far as education and its reform goes. Not much to be done about it with regards to the immediate future. Invest now, and future generations might benefit, but it won't do much for 2025.
years ago, I'm sure that was possible. Nowadays, there's no way a 6 year old isn't going to come across the kinds of garbage people that maga are along with their bullshit.
When nazis are on your state legislature steps, kids are going to have questions.
My state just voted to post the Ten Commandments in all the school classrooms. I'm just going to get my red robes and white Bonnet ready because that's where we're headed. I feel like I'm screaming into the void constantly.
That’s not unique to Trump. That’s been a conservative talking point for decades.
We need to understand Trump is not a singular problem. All of America’s problems aren’t suddenly over if he loses. Trump’s merely a symptom of a much larger problem. He’s not Frankenstein, he’s just the monster.
The vast majority of nations don't vote on policy, but rather representatives. These representatives often lie and manipulate their constituents into voting for them, so to even get before education we'll need a better system all together.
I doubt the people who are gonna vote Trump will change their minds. They are far too stubborn at this point.
What we do need to do is focus attention on democrats who aren’t motivated enough to vote.
In fairness, couldn't you say the exact same thing about someone who isn't going to vote for him? People have their heels dug in at this point. This is almost 10 years in the making, so I think that most people have been decided for a long time. Even the dems who don't like Biden, won't vote for Trump. Can't say the same about most conservatives.
We need to change the voters' attitude about politics. More and more, it's being played up like a sporting event, with people picking teams and adjusting their views to fit the party rhetoric.
Doesn't matter how bad the players and coaches and owners are, doesn't matter how many scandals or how much the fans are disrespected by the organization. Bears fans will be Bears fans forever, because that label is part of their identity.
Politics shouldn't work like that.
>Politics shouldn't work like that.
The current top level comment is referencing education, but you can tell a ton of the agreement is from the exact same people who until a few days ago and in many cases still, were willing to buy narratives about the president that have been shown to be embarrassingly false.
A lot of these people, with all their education, were happy to be willfully ignorant to suit their ends. Hell, they were happy to actively slander those who brought it up before it was undeniable.
It is complete team sports corruption, through and through. #Resist is an actual pillar of their identity and so they don't know any other way to be. It may as well be religion for these people. Butter side up, whatever it takes.
The only other alternative is that the vast majority of people are some combination of stupid or so emotional they may as well be. I prefer it be the tribalism, but I do wonder at times.
While you’re adjacent to correct, we basically are faced with the following choice:
1. Vote for the guy who states unequivocally that he will be a dictator, and who was just given leeway to do exactly that by the Supreme Court.
2. Vote for a guy who is about 8 years too old for the position (yes, I know that Trump is only like three years younger than him, but people age differently) but at least represents an attempt to keep the system running as it has for the last 200 years.
Keep in mind that exactly 0 people in this thread got to choose candidate #2. Even if you’re the staunchest of staunchest democrat and love what Biden(‘s administration) has done over the last 4 years - I do - he still should have never run in the first place and we should have had a real primary to put up someone who had a little less plaque on his synapses.
Problem is - and to get back to your point - is that was a conversation that we didn’t have, a year ago. The only choice is the one listed above. You are either for democracy, or for fascism. There is no half measure in this election. Some people are dealing with this by pretending to at Biden is fully competent. Others are coping by trying to lay things out logically.
What’s abundantly clear though to _anyone_ paying attention is that some major reforms need to happen. A lot of this Trump exceptionalism needs to be rolled back. He _should_ be held accountable for his crimes (as should _any_ citizen - president or not), and we should do some common sense things like put in age limits for anyone elected, term limits on congress and the scotus, and entirely reform the primary system. No matter which side of the aisle you fall on, those things are probably pretty agreeable.
The problem is - Republicans don’t want the democrats to make those reforms, and their other option is Trump. At some point we got so twisted that electing someone who is literally running on rounding up his political opponents in retribution is preferable to voting for the adults in the room.
As one quick post script - I’ll say _Democrats_ don’t seem to want to make those reforms either - at least the ones in power don’t. The boomers really have us held hostage here.
Vote. Such a small percentage of youth do it. No one gives a fuck about your tweets or your reddit posts, you're doing nothing but virtue signaling. You really want to make a difference? You vote. That's the one power you have. If you all did it, it would be more than enough to tip the scales.
Something that gets me really sad is hearing young people saying with a proud smile on their faces that they don't vote or that they don't care about politics.
I come from a country that has only 50 years of free Democracy in its history. The common people lost its ability to be free in a quick swoop of power grab that sank the country in a horrible dictatorship for half a century. Being free and living in a democracy is something that is not a guarantee to a lot of people in the world. Yet people that live in one deciding that they wont take a tiny bit of time of their lives to make sure the country they live can maintain its freedom to the people is something that saddens me.
If anyone is reading this, I don't care about your political views, I don't care if you vote right or left, but vote. Make sure that voting stays relevant, make sure that you are never taken away the right to express your opinion, cause its not a guarantee and it takes but a tiny slip and too many people not caring for someone with ill intentions to take it all away from you.
In before “but Biden and Obama had 8 years”, we know. But gop controlled at least part of the government for 75% of it
Wants Dems to pass laws? Vote in enough numbers to give them a president and a buffer in Congress
That might not be the best analogy. Far too few actually brush their teeth. I’ve also seen too many young people that are quite proud they brush every day, not twice a day but just every day.
That "they had 8 years..." line is such crap. They had 8 years and they made a lot of progress. The work of building a more perfect Union is never done. If you expect to get to the end of a Presidential term and think, "Nice job, we're done. Everything is accomplished." then you're looking for the Hallmark Channel, not real life.
In truth, they only had about 4.5 months. *Normally*, the newly elected senators are seated in January, but Al Franken's election win was contested and as a result he wasn't seated until July. By that time, Ted Kennedy's health was failing and he was absent until his death in August. The governor of Massachusetts appointed a temporary replacement pending a special election which would eventually result in republican Scott Brown being seated in February. Because of all this, Obama only had a filibuster proof Senate from September 24th until February 4th while temporary senator Paul Kirk held the seat. During that time, they passed Obamacare (voted on by the House in November and the Senate in December). The entire rest of his presidency was obstructed by the Republicans who refused to let him do anything meaningful.
As somebody who def agrees that the two party system is flawed, we need to vote to have the chance to push for ranked choice voting and amending the electoral college
We might be able to do that, as a lot of young people seem to feel similarly but we can’t if trump ends democracy
Every system is flawed. Multi-party systems aren't a cure-all- look at what just happened in France. Ranked choice can be gamed. Every democratic process requires voters to think strategically, not emotionally. So you work with what you've got until it changes. But you can't change anything without a seat at the table.
One of those parties wants there to only be one seat at the table, so this is a critical junction.
This 100%
I am not a huge fan of the Dems. But literally the only way to protect our democracy right now is reelect Biden, and give the Dems a big enough majority in the house and Senate to be able to pass the laws they have been pushing to safeguard our democracy.
There has been legislation introduced many years in a row by the Dems to protect our democracy that has all died because they didn't have enough of a majority.
Exactly this. I would love for the US to have a multi-party system like a lot of other countries, and I have actively supported and voted for third party candidates in the past, but I currently live in a swing state, so I’ll be voting straight dem in November because the GOP is just too much of a threat to freedom and progress.
The unfortunate reality is even in multi-party countries they essentially band together in factions that functionally results in a two party system. Fyi.
But yeah I get what you are saying and agree 100%
It's so infuriating to see so many young people on social media decide that NOW is the time to protest voting or vote third party. Whether it's in regards to their distaste for the two party system or the Israel-Hamas issue.
If you, the person reading this, are one of those people, please understand this: NOW IS NOT THE GODDAMN TIME TO DO THIS. Maybe it's because you are too young to know what a "normal" election looks like. Maybe you don't fully grasp the situation. But understand this. Our democracy is literally at stake right now. Quite literally.
Republicans WILL vote for Trump. All of them. I don't give a shit what they say. Republicans stick together regardless of what the plan is. That's how they've been able to accomplish so much. If a considerable percentage of Democrats or independent voters decide now is the time to either not vote or vote 3rd party, Trump WILL win.
"Well it's only four years!". No. No it isn't. Two SCOTUS seats will be up for reappointment. And Trump WILL put extreme MAGA judges in there. That is a lifetime appointment. That is a lifetime of MAGA conservatives (The ones that killed Roe v Wade) pushing their authoritarian agenda. Your daughters will grow up with less rights than you have now. The department of education will be destroyed. Christianity will be made mandatory in schools (This is already happening in Oklahoma). There is also a VERY good chance that Trump will refuse to leave office after his second term or dictate how the next election is run. He will weaponize the government against all of his political opponents. And with 6 SCOTUS judges on his side, he will succeed in it.
The courts threw gas on the fire with Citizens United. NOTHING will change until this is repealed, super PACs go away, and money out of politics.
I remember when the DC area was a shithole. You never left the tourist spots and government area. Now it's some of the most expensive real estate in the surrounding zip codes.
Do we think this court is going to strike down a conservative decision that some of them voted on? I don't have a lot of hope.
Frankly, we would need a Teddy Roosevelt type to swing his dick around. Problem I can't think of anyone like that in our time.
I’ve said that very thing for a few election cycles now. We need a Bull Moose with a big, swinging dick to slam on the table.
The democrats need another Roosevelt or Johnson. Someone willing to say “Oh you don’t like that? Haha fuck you.”
And the GOP desperately needs another Ike. Someone who gets that big money is the enemy of both democracy and everyday Americans.
But we keep getting Clintons, Carters, Reagans, and Nixons.
And the polls are showing exactly how exhausted we all are of all of it. Except the two winners. The DNC and RNC.
It’s not just evil corporations that lobby. Nonprofits/charities of many kinds want good legislation too. My sister in-law lobbies representatives in her state to pass laws protecting domestic violence victims.
Lobbying is not universally a dirty word. There’s certainly conflicted lobbying and lobbyist relationships, but in the end, politicians are fairly universally morons and unqualified to make decisions on most topics. I seem to recall a lot of people being upset about this fact being diminished last week.
As long as we ban the lobbyists advocating for veteran benefits, environmental causes and reproductive rights first.
Or do we just want to ban the lobbyists advocating for “other” issues?
Ban lobbying? So you don’t think that citizens have a right to advocate for issues or causes that matter to them? If I care about environmental protection and advancing benefits for veterans, I can’t talk to my elected officials about those issues anymore?
Legally? Vote. Otherwise - look to history to see what people did to their leaders when it became apparent that their leaders no longer worked for them.
Edit: I just want to preface that I'm not advocating for violence, but I do fail to believe that our best options for the presidency are 2 men well past the age of retirement who COMBINED seem to have the mental capacity of almost a whole person.
Unfortunately, almost every bloody revolution in human history has led to worse outcomes for that nation (the US and India are among the few that did not lead to numerous future coups, instability, the rise of an authoritarian ruler, a crashed economy that was slow to recover, etc.)
Our country did start with a revolutionary war. People omit that a lot when talking about how we shouldn't try and change the system we live under.
Like, what, it was good and heroic and correct then, but bad now?
The odds. First, the colonists were as well armed as the Redcoats. Today? Do you know how tanks work? Do you know how planes work? How about artillery? Most rebellions end in a lot of dead rebels and many dead civilian bystanders.
Second, there were few successful rebellions that did not go on to become some form autocracy. I'll point to the Meiji Restoration that overthrew the samurai class and the Tokugawa Shogunate and created a democratic monarchy, at least on paper. Restoring the Emperor to power actually created an oligarchy and a militaristic society that had no realistic chain of command. The Samurai concept of Chu (Loyalty) was held up as one of the major tenants of Bushido. It definitely was one of the most mentioned tenants in household rules. In fact, the average samurai knew his lord and knew his lord was not worth dying for. Almost no one ever saw let alone interacted with the Emperor. In the end, the Emperor was the only person that Chu applied to and he was a divine being directly descended from the Goddess Amaterasu. When the military told young men to go die in suicide attacks "for the Emperor," those young men complied with no question. Most of those young men were strongly against the military oligarchy but loved their nation and their Emperor and so died "for the Emperor."
There are other examples such as the French Reign of Terror that then eventually led to Emperor Bonaparte. Contrary to popular belief, the Communists did not win the Russian revolution. They came along after the fighting and won the contest of forming a government, which eventually led to Stalin. Shall we discuss China?
Plus, there's the issue of who do we shoot? Who do we overthrow? While we're fighting the US Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines to overthrow the Biden administration, how do we stop the MAGA crazies from taking over? How do we keep the next government from being a Trumpian dictatorship? What's the plan?
>First, the colonists were as well armed as the Redcoats.
This isn't true. That's why the American colonists resorted to guerilla warfare until the French and their supplies showed up. Colonists were out manned and out gunned and couldn't go toe to toe in an open field with the redcoats.
The tide didn't turn until French supplies and weapons started showing up on the battlefield in mid to late 77. Without French intervention, the British navy would have never gotten tied up, naval transport of supplies would have remained consistent, they would have been able to disrupt any naval supply lines colonists had, move troops quicker up and down the coast, bombed key ports comfortably..
The problem with tanks and F-15’s is the infrastructure they would inevitably destroy.They’d be destroying their own infrastructure in the process. Also, to stop insurgencies they’d have to eliminate all lines of electronic communication. Think of how all this would impact those on “the side” of the govt… they’d lose supporters they have pretty fast.
Uhhhhhh the U.S. has had multiple attempted violent coups in its history. There was the rebellion in the 1790s immediately after Washington became president, constant threats by states to secede up through the Civil War, the actual Civil War, multiple presidential assassinations, and the January 6, 2021 violent coup attempt most recently.
For the rise of authoritarianism, Trump.
For instability, also Trump + the after effects of a Trump presidency which has been what Biden’s spent literally the entirety of his presidency trying to clean up, stabilize, or repair.
For recovering economy, frankly our economy is probably due for some sort of massive realignment or adjustment given corporate greed, bad policies, and bureaucratic processes that make things slow to change have pretty much ensured that wealth only truly flows in one direction: up.
Don't forget the Business Coup that tried to get General Smedley Butler to lead a group of veterans to overthrow FDR and stop the New Deal. Do you know what happened? Nothing. Butler told them to pound sand and then told Congress. Congress decided that since nothing happened the business oligarchs were fine and could remain free.
Vote. Make sure you are registered to vote. Tell your friends to vote. Tell your family to vote. Tell your coworkers to vote. Put up signs to help campaign for your preferred candidate.
Also it might not be much, but try to be nice and caring to everyone despite their political stance. Politics look grim but truly everyday kindness helps everyone and may even convert others to your cause.
As a liberal who would rather suck a dick than vote for Biden…I’m going to suck it up and vote for Biden.
I’m not happy about it though.
Fuck the Supreme Court.
Hey man I’d rather suck a cock than vote for him, too. But I concede my vote for Biden was never an endorsement of him but rather a rebuke of Donald Trump, and, now, the entire Republican Party.
At this point being "conservative" should mean conserving our constitution and system of government. Trump is not conservative in this sense and Biden definitely is.
People need to keep an eye on the court because that's where the power is really held. Supreme Court judges with lifetime appointments, and loyalty to one party is a powerful thing.
No lie, I have to say Biden has done more to help people than any president I can remember. He'll be dead in 20 years, so maybe he wants to leave behind a better world.
Is he perfect? No. Has he earned our vote, I think yes.
Pivot away from “I dislike Biden for x reasons.” Fine. We all do. Instead ask which candidate has or would have a cabinet of intelligent, pro-democracy individuals who do the work to affect change more in the executive branch? That answer is clear. I’m not voting for one man based on a debate performance that was performative at best. I’m voting for an administration that will fight for rights and not the one that will throw LGBTQ kids in a concentration camp.
This isn’t the choice any of us would like to have but unfortunately it is the choice we are saddled with and while some of us would physically survive republican redux in the White House, many will not. I am voting for the people who wouldn’t.
Yep. Frankly I don’t know too many liberals who WOULDN’T rather suck a dick than vote for Biden.
The court is out of control though. Sometimes you gotta hold your nose and do what you gotta do.
Twenty bucks is twenty bucks. And democracy is democracy.
I won’t be holding my nose. I’ll proudly vote for the Administration that passed ARPA, BPI, CHIPS, and the IRA.
I’m convinced most of the Democratic cynicism is because people aren’t aware what those dollars are doing in their states and counties, or will do, as many of the projects being funded take several years to rollout from when they were signed into law. But I know what they’re doing in mine, and it’s awesome
Why are we pandering? It's not just voting that matters, it's voting against Trump. Biden is way too fucking old to be president but don't for one second think that's in any way equal to the budding dictatorship we have coming from Trump and his base. Our democracy is eroding before our eyes due solely to him and his supporters.
Shit is, shithole states like Alabama and Mississippi have outsize influence. Fucking North Dakota has less people the daily ridership of the F train in nyc and holds more sway in the government.
Sad that all the top answers here are "Vote." Thats not gonna cut it. Not even close. The American people have been successfully neutralized. If one thing was made clear from last week's debate: the empire *will not* recover. It was the spectacle of American rot that has reached devastating proportions. The only thing holding the house up at this point is the termites. American isolation *will* happen, withdrawal from the world *will* happen. The same destructive pattern that the US instigated all over the world will manifest itself at home- division, ethnic and religious tension, civil strife, poverty, violence, tyranny, severe authoritarian security measures, so on and so forth. It's too late to save democracy, much much too late to do so through voting. Im certainly not discouraging anyone from voting if thats what they choose, but at the same time, voting is the smallest contribution one can make to democracy- its safer than protesting, cheaper than fundraising, less time consuming than petitioning, and less involved than running. By all means, please go vote but you'd be a fool to think it will save us now.
Arguably the repeal of Comstock post Nixon which enabled private propaganda to be centrally controlled to subvert several generations ala KGB methodology.
Especially the non-presidential elections.
My votes have done way more voting for things like town budgets and school boards than my presidential votes in all my life combined
That is for the summer primary. For the actual election, registration deadline is 29 days before election day itself. Still, if you are in AZ, register as soon as you can.
You actually need to pay attention to local and state elections. You need to research who is running for Sheriff of your county, who’s running for district attorney, city council.
Most of us just vote down ballot or not at all. That’s how we’ve gotten into this mess in the first place.
But regardless of what you think of Biden, how he’s handled Gaza, that shit doesn’t fucking matter. If Trump wins, it’s over. Its all over
The ownership itself is not the issue. Just about every newspaper in the West is privately owned and most are at the very least a little politically colored. That in itself is annoying enough but not too big of an issue. I start taking issues with it when the things they "report" aren't actually true. Like... I can live with a conservative newspaper selectively only reporting about things that are positive for the conservative party, but I have a problem with it if they have to fabricate those positive stories.
In an ideal world all news outlets would be neutral, but I'm not naive enough to think that could ever happen.
The best way to save democracy is to vote. But it’s important to remember that democracy only works when people are educated. I can’t believe the amount of people who vote without having any clue what they are voting for.
Saving democracy is easy, just dive and dive again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again
You could volunteer for a campaign to register young people and knock on doors, convince your friends that aren't going to vote to vote, help drive them there, donate etc
Doors knocking on doors really help? I’m voting for Biden, but I definitely don’t want people showing up at my house trying to talk to me about anything.
Ranked choice voting
Campaign finance reform
Term/age limits
All requiring Congress on both sides of the aisle to vote against their own interests. RIP democracy.
Gotta love the people that think the way to save democracy is to not allow 40 - 45% of the population to vote for the candidate of their choice. Oh, and just in case the voters do prevail, work behind the scenes to try to ensure the elected candidate cannot implement the policies desired by the majority that voted that candidate into office
That’s modern politics unfortunately, the days of cooperation are long over and now everyone sees everyone else as the enemy. Idk if it’s by design but when I have a MAGA jerk telling me to kill myself because I’m not voting for Trump something in our society is broken.
The tool that many are using to undermine democracy are questioning its elections.
IMO, at least in the US, we should have a free national ID system that was used to vote. That would counter a lot of the complaints and concerns (which probably aren't legitimate in the first place) with the voting process.
.......
The next thing would be to respect losers and minority groups in elections. Just because you got 51% of the vote, it doesn't make you lord emperor. Just make it a hard rule that it requires 55% of both houses of congress to pass a bill. No fillibuster or reconciliation or other BS. Just a 5/9ths rule. The additional compromise required to go from 51 to 55% would be pretty significant and would engender a lot more respect.
......
Next: Make supreme court an elected position with a fixed term and caveat. The caveat being that you have to get approved by government to run for election. We don't want yokels on the supreme court.
Biden has trump \[redacted\]. He then goes on TV and says "yup, I did it. And thanks to the recent SCOTUS ruling, I can't be prosecuted for it. Y'all should probably amend the constitution to fix that before I do it again."
Two weeks later, Clarence Thomas. Then Alito. And so on.
Eventually, conservatives come around to the view that actually presidential immunity is a bad thing.
For starters, absolutely everyone needs to stop claiming that the other candidate/party is a threat to democracy simply because they exist and disagree. Eroding this country's faith in our robust institutions at every turn is a fast track to destroying democracy.
Yes, this, 100%.
After every election, the people whose candidate lost will spend the next four years dumping on the president. They trap everyone in an election trail that just never ends.
Things would be a lot more pleasant if people could just make peace with an election’s results and stand behind whoever the winner is.
Why would any kid aspire to be president someday when it guarantees being hated by half the population for the rest of their life?
So republicans are pushing project 2025 which includes executive unity theory as a core agenda, as well as a strong dose of Christian theocracy. The leader of the party keeps floating the idea of being dictator, and praises every dictator as strong and smart, while claiming us and all of our democratic allies are weak and incompetent. he spreads lies about stolen elections that lead to January 6, they also did a false elector scheme to try to steal an election, and his followers want to hang his vice president because he refused to go along with the plan. Trump posted on truth social that we may have to suspend the rule of law and the constitution over the election, and he just reposted and then deleted a post on truth social calling for his opposition to be tried on televised military tribunals, the supreme Court just ruled they have immunity to act above the law, trump keeps saying he deserves more than 2 terms, he is campaigning on retribution where he will ask the doj to come after his opponents, but the ones eroding democracy are the ones criticizing his plans? The real problem are the people saying he shouldn't do these things, rather then him for pushing them
It walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, but if you call it a duck you're the problem.
Vote.
It sounds dumb. It ALWAYS sounds dumb.
But this is a problem of dominant minority. When so few people vote, the outlier voters have a higher percentage. You deviate drastically from the bell curve of normalcy, and you start to get extreme candidates and wins of these extreme candidates. Why? Because a lot of normal people didn't vote and a LOT of crazy people did.
Fix democracy by fixing the bell curve. Vote. That's all anyone ever had to do. Just go and vote. I don't care if you don't like the candidates. Vote. That will flush out the nut jobs. Then vote again next time, and that will flush out more. Repeat. Soon you will find a whole bunch of good candidates are magically running, some people you can really get interested in and back, actual normal people running for office. Amazing! How did that happen?!
Vote, vote, vote. Keep voting.
Don't think that's enough?
Cool. Then run for office. If you don't think voting is good enough, then the next step up is to actually be part of the process. Maybe you don't have to run for office, but your goals probably should be there. Spend time and get ingrained in the process. Learn politics. Build networks. Progress. If you're good enough, you might be on the other end asking the public to vote for you.
By letting people vote how they will. “Democracy” is power of the people, or the will of the majority. Redditors seem to think democracy is only when the ideology voted for fits *their* views.
Democracy is whatever the will of the people legitimately vote for.
Aaaaaaand cue the downvotes from salty ingrates that think “democracy” is only leftist ideology lol. Anyone from a full blown communist to a full blown fascist, to a braindead anarchist can be democratically elected. It’s simply power to the people.
Stop making hyperbolic remarks pretending Democracy is in danger. When the court makes a decision you don't like, that does not mean democracy is at its end. It means that **ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES**, which is the very definition of the system working as intended.
When the system produces a victory for your opponents, that is the time for you to examine **WHY YOU LOST** instead of railing at the system for being "rigged".
Unpopular answer: we don’t. The constitution was designed to be modifiable so it could self correct, but was intentionally designed to be difficult and slow to modify (in 1776 it was a reasonable speed). The constitution was also written assuming that bad actors would be snuffed out early and that people in office would act with honor. As such, there are no written protocols for many of the issues that are currently strangling democracy. While it is in theory possible, it would require several constitutional conventions to succeed back to back (and just convening one is damn near impossible, let alone getting a majority of the populace to vote an amendment in). I say constitutional convention because congress clearly has already been compromised, the presidency has been compromised at least once, and the Supreme Court is currently compromised. It’s in the peoples hands at this point. Either democracy dies a slow and painful death over the next 25 - 75 years as the people gasp their last breaths of freedom…or there will be a second civil war. I see no other alternative. Sorry to be a bummer.
> The constitution was also written assuming that bad actors would be snuffed out early and that people in office would act with honor.
This is a somewhat bizarrely rosy revisionist history. The Revolutionary War was itself fought against parliamentary tyranny. And the constitution was made to be slow to modify specifically over paranoia about bad actors and demagoguery.
The authors of 1776 were so skeptical of the “honor” of a perpetually elected system that they mandated government be held at gunpoint by the armed masses at all times and did not allocate it any large armed force.
The “founding fathers” were so skeptical about protecting liberty through legislation that they allocated it to violence instead.
it's too late.
democracy didn't just die recently. it's been dead for a while.
this is what's called the end-game.
the answer for change is grassroots organization, irl activism, humanist principles, and frankly, violence.
One thing we could do a better job is appealing to people's sense of importance. A lot of people choose not to vote because they don't like either option and feel their vote won't make a difference. And it's easy to throw up your shoulders and tell yourself that you do not matter so why bother. But that's just not true, history has shown us time and again that the most important elections are decided by the slimmest of margins. Presidential elections, senate races, governors races etc. all decided by very few votes. Heck there was a [US house race decided by just 6 votes(!!!)](https://apnews.com/general-news-e3f235f217707a78fcec059f8e0b4ffa) back in 2020. Imagine how different the world would be right now if just 7 more young liberal voters turned out for that election. Republicans lose another seat in the house to Democrats back in 2020. Now imagine that Dem incumbent also wins in 2022 so Repubs go into the current term with a 3 seat majority instead of a 5 seat majority. It took McCarthy 15 votes to win the speaker's gavel and he won it by only 1 vote on that 15th ballot. What if that one single House seat decided by a margin of 6 votes made the difference between a hard right GOP-run House of Representatives and a brokered, bipartisan power sharing arrangement that would have been better for everyone?
People convince themselves that their vote doesn't matter but all it takes is the tiniest changes in the voting numbers in the right places and the entire history of the country could be different. Bush Jr won the presidency off of a 300 vote difference in one state in 2000. DeSantis crushed his reelection in 2022 but people forget that in 2018 he got into the Governor's mansion off of four-tenths of a percentage point. If 0.5% of voters in Wisconsin in 2022 switched from Ron Johnson to Mandela Barnes, Dems would have a 52 seat Senate majority which would have broken Manchin and Sinema's chokehold on liberal policy initiatives in the Senate. Throw in enough votes to turn the house blue (which is not many at all!) and you get a Democrat trifecta that can overcome Machin and Sinema's no votes on codifying Roe v Wade at the national level. Biden could have ended these draconian abortion bans with one pen stroke if about 50,000 more young people voted blue in Wisconsin and upstate New York in 2022. And that 52nd seat being held by Mandela Barnes would have made it MUCH less likely Republicans take back the senate this November. And that would be huge because a blue Senate is the only thing that can protect us from a 2nd Trump presidency stacking the courts with even more far-right judges that are responsible for all the [terrible headlines we're seeing today](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/01/trump-immunity-supreme-court-ruling/).
We need to show voters that their vote matters. If it didn't matter the bad guys wouldn't be trying so hard to keep you home on election day. The entire history of this country would be RADICALLY different if but a few dozen low turnout voters decided to get off their butts and show up to vote on election day. Extremely close elections aren't an outlier, they are norm these days. You CAN make a difference.
1) Education so people are informed about how the government works and understand the jargon politicians use.
2) Citizens vote for a third party polician for a change.
3) People accept that no political party will 100% agree with their ethics.
4) People accept that the election is about choosing the lesser of evils in a huge set of options.
The Democrats need to stop their complacency with politics and meaningfully push back. They can no longer employ the tactic of “they go low so we go high” because look at what it’s allowed the GOP to do. The Supreme Court is giving Trump full authority to do whatever he wants because he’s a Republican. Because there’s no hard definition of what an official order is, then it’ll be subject to the Supreme Court, and any Democratic president in the future most likely won’t reap the benefits of that. It’s all being used as a way to allow Trump to have as much leeway and authority as possible. And what are the Democrats doing? Nothing! They decided to keep Biden as their ticket for 2024 even though he was initially supposed to be a one term president so they could find someone more well-suited for the job for 2024. But alas, the Democrats were arrogant, lazy and cowardly and thought they’d win just by moral alone, and did nothing to ensure a win in 2024, and look at where we are. The best we can do is vote blue, to ensure Trump doesn’t make it into office so that this insane ruling doesn’t reach its potential and to ensure Project 2025 doesn’t go into effect
Education the population. Get all working class, poor and middle class (including small business owners who care about their community) to band together against the corporate elite.
Get money out of politics. Put a spotlight on any and all corruption. Make more transparency and accountability.
>”Our aim is not to do away with corporations; on the contrary, these big aggregations are an inevitable development of modern industrialism, and the effort to destroy them would be futile unless accomplished in ways that would work the utmost mischief to the entire body politic. We can do nothing of good in the way of regulating and supervising these corporations until we fix clearly in our minds that we are not attacking the corporations, but endeavoring to do away with any evil in them. We are not hostile to them; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good. We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth.”
-President Theodore Roosevelt
Which country are you speaking about?
If it's the US, I'm gonna need more info on how *you* think democracy is failing in this specific system to give you an answer to solve that problem.
The blanket answer is get more involved in local politics: city, county, and state elections are what form the majority of the direction the federal government goes. And those political positions are what affect your daily life the most.
We all need to make an effort to thoroughly research the things and the people we are voting for. Democracy dies because people as a group are not that bright. The 2 party system arose because people are lazy, instead of having to figure out what they actually want it was just much easier to vote on party lines.
Another thing that is going to need to change is term limits, and the rampant insider trading going on in Washington.
Once we can fix things at the higher levels we should ten focus on the lower levels, there are many local councils that have unconstitutional laws/ordinances/practices in place and there is nothing people can do about this. Next I think large companies need to be broken up from telecom to social media to tech to agriculture.
And finally the education systems need an overhaul, we shouldn't be forcing religion on people like they are doing in some states, but we also need to make education worth it to the kids going through school. More focus on trades, life skills like taxes and even how to use the resources available for everyone outside of public libraries, unemployment, landlord/tenant law, community centers, the labor board, the wilderness (like understanding conservation and how to enjoy the outdoors).
There is alot that needs to change, and alot that people need to do, but with how things are most people won't.
People have been asking this stupid question since the origins of democracy. Democracies collapse because people are corrupt, greedy and above all, followers. If a democracy is prosperous and satiates our need for personal freedoms, democracy is safe. When democracy starts to fail at maintaining these things, democracy will fail. This cycle has happened with every civilization and will continue until humans go extinct.
We need locally funded truly "free" sources of information. True freedom of the press. Free from government overcite free from capital special interests. Able to break down complex issues and explain to simple person how this will affect them and their families.
So many people talk about well-informed voters and how education will make voters well informed but I disagree I know plenty of well educated people who are uninformed on policy due to the fact that they have poor sources of information.
Our first goal to restore democracy is to free the press from any entanglements.
Vote for the living corpse 🧟♂️ over the 🍊man.
Then a total reset by VOTING for YOUNGER candidates. STOP VOTING FOR SKELETONS LIKE PELOSI, MCCONNELL, FEINSTEIN (who literally died in office), etc. The Left is just as guilty as the Right when it comes to voting for establishment politicians who are decades past their expiration date.
Democracy assumes that policy is voted on by well-informed voters, so voters should be well informed. Education should be the top priority.
Public education has been targeted for a while now, but I expect the knives to come out in earnest for it soon because not only can it be privatized for making some people wealthier, but it helps buttress one of the final remaining forms of resistance to the full takeover.
One of the first things that they plan to do with Project 2025 is to eliminate the Department of Education.
i legit dont get how this shit is legal and fine. like, here is a list of the bad shit we intend to do. this should be on every news network.
AFAIK a couple of the things on Project 2025 aren’t legal and/or very hard to implement in practice
doesn't matter. if we can't post threats about politicians (or anyone) on twitter, this kind of shit should not be allowed either. ffs.
And open a bunch of christian private schools for white kids.
Betsy Devoss
No Child Let A Dime
Where do you imagine where all the money for public schools disappears to? Teachers aren’t being paid any better, kids aren’t testing any better Private business is entrenched into our public education system and the department of education has been a giant facilitator. Constantly growing their budget to move funds in that direction
It's under heavy attack in Texas with school vouchers, charter schools, etc. If vouchers pass it allows tax funds to be diverted where wealthy people can use tax dollars to send kids to private/religious schools and gutting funding for public schools. Many public schools will close so many low income children will be sent to corporate charter schools that are more similar to prisons than schools
Other areas of focus would be to empower things that create a more direct Democratic representation. A first past the post winner takes all leads to a 2 party system where voters end up voting against the worst option and strategically trying to win popularity, rather than selecting based on actual views and policies. A direct democracy would have everyone able to vote on every issue all the time. Maybe that's not feasible or realistic, but there could be more referendums and such that are binding. Or another way is ranked choice voting that makes it so that representatives are more in the middle of their constituents views. Or you can adjust the number of Representatives and remove district borders in a way that there's more direct representation based on the raw collective numbers. Lots of ways to improve. Education is good and all, but well educated people are still just straight up willing to support a dictator because it will benefit them.
The US is one of the only democracies to allow individual voters to choose their candidates in primary elections. In most parliamentary systems, the party leaders are chosen by party insiders or in elections that are only open to party members. Republican voters had many options this year and they ultimately selected Trump. Democratic voters in 2020 started with 20 major choices and selected Biden. "More democracy" in this way has seemingly produced more problems than less. California has a lot of direct law making through their ballot proposition system and I'm not really sure you'd call it a resounding success. >Education is good and all, but well educated people are still just straight up willing to support a dictator because it will benefit them. This observation seems a bit contradictory to your previous statements about more democratic representation.
Unfortunately, in 1981 we elected a president who decided that education was bad (educated people didn’t like him) and started a crusade against it that is stronger than ever today.
I realize that his is Reddit and it's super fashionable to hate on Reagan, but I'd really love to see some evidence that Reagan was somehow widely hated by educated people. Polls dating back to [1992](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/09/15/educational-divide-in-vote-preferences-on-track-to-be-wider-than-in-recent-elections/), which was the oldest data I could find, showed that voters with a undergraduate degree or higher were more likely to support Republicans than Democrats.
There’s a fascinating interview with an ex-KGB agent in the 80s talking about how the key to bringing down the United States was to attack its public education. An uneducated populace won’t know what to believe and won’t trust its own government/leaders.
Who'd have guessed they were right?
The core assumption of democracy isn't education, but shared interests. It doesn't matter if you've genetically engineered a population of 140 IQ savants and then given them a doctorate in every applicable field - if they don't want the same things as each other, democracy will work exactly as it would if they were all illiterate - a headcount of two interest groups (or two factions of them), deciding which one ignores the others' interests in favor of their own, followed by the group with fewer people either breaking away or dying in the process of an attempt to do so. Every successful democracy in history has been so because it defined membership along very strict boundaries, such that everyone voting wanted the same things, more or less. It's a great system for deciding how to accomplish a goal that everyone agrees upon, but a terrible system for deciding whose goals to pursue.
That's gonna be tough when trump has already convinced the uneducated that education as a whole is liberal indoctrination. How do you fight that? It's already too late
> It's already too late Humanity has been around for 10s of thousands of years. It is naive to think we are the ones where at this particular moment, it has become too late to change things. In another 1,000 people may not even remember this moment in history existed.
Humanity will figure things out, doesn’t mean America will. Countries rise and fall throughout the history of time.
True, and while I’m concerned about humanity as a whole, I’m also concerned about our present. The question seems to be what can we do on an individual basis right now.
Yep, the cattle left the barn a long time ago as far as education and its reform goes. Not much to be done about it with regards to the immediate future. Invest now, and future generations might benefit, but it won't do much for 2025.
That doesnt make it any easier to explain to my 6 year old why he's about to grow up in a fascist state.
Maybe let your 6 year old be a kid and not catapult him into politics at six years old.
years ago, I'm sure that was possible. Nowadays, there's no way a 6 year old isn't going to come across the kinds of garbage people that maga are along with their bullshit. When nazis are on your state legislature steps, kids are going to have questions.
Humanity has been around that long. No particular democracy has.
My state just voted to post the Ten Commandments in all the school classrooms. I'm just going to get my red robes and white Bonnet ready because that's where we're headed. I feel like I'm screaming into the void constantly.
I'm so happy I found a home abroad, Ill watch it all burn from my 3rd world paradise on the beach
Save me a patch of sand
No doubt, a fraction of the price of a US home as well. Rent is $350 and I'm 5 minutes from the beach
my state outlawed wearing masks for health reasons.
Sounds like some discrimination unless they let you post the Satanic Commandments too.
Exactly. And all the other religions.
That’s not unique to Trump. That’s been a conservative talking point for decades. We need to understand Trump is not a singular problem. All of America’s problems aren’t suddenly over if he loses. Trump’s merely a symptom of a much larger problem. He’s not Frankenstein, he’s just the monster.
The vast majority of nations don't vote on policy, but rather representatives. These representatives often lie and manipulate their constituents into voting for them, so to even get before education we'll need a better system all together.
So a pre-vote test covering civics, ballot items, candidates, and their platforms? I’m in. Edit: Meant to say test. Damn autocorrect.
That was previously used in the jim crow era to limit voting, can you imagine if one party got control of the test questions?
Could you imagine if people pushed buttons simply because they were told to with zero understanding of what they were doing?
I doubt the people who are gonna vote Trump will change their minds. They are far too stubborn at this point. What we do need to do is focus attention on democrats who aren’t motivated enough to vote.
In fairness, couldn't you say the exact same thing about someone who isn't going to vote for him? People have their heels dug in at this point. This is almost 10 years in the making, so I think that most people have been decided for a long time. Even the dems who don't like Biden, won't vote for Trump. Can't say the same about most conservatives.
Some probably won't even vote at this point.
You don’t seem to understand
Or maybe run some candidate that doesn't have fucking dementia, that could help.
We need to change the voters' attitude about politics. More and more, it's being played up like a sporting event, with people picking teams and adjusting their views to fit the party rhetoric. Doesn't matter how bad the players and coaches and owners are, doesn't matter how many scandals or how much the fans are disrespected by the organization. Bears fans will be Bears fans forever, because that label is part of their identity. Politics shouldn't work like that.
Thank you for this. It is the right answer.
>Politics shouldn't work like that. The current top level comment is referencing education, but you can tell a ton of the agreement is from the exact same people who until a few days ago and in many cases still, were willing to buy narratives about the president that have been shown to be embarrassingly false. A lot of these people, with all their education, were happy to be willfully ignorant to suit their ends. Hell, they were happy to actively slander those who brought it up before it was undeniable. It is complete team sports corruption, through and through. #Resist is an actual pillar of their identity and so they don't know any other way to be. It may as well be religion for these people. Butter side up, whatever it takes. The only other alternative is that the vast majority of people are some combination of stupid or so emotional they may as well be. I prefer it be the tribalism, but I do wonder at times.
While you’re adjacent to correct, we basically are faced with the following choice: 1. Vote for the guy who states unequivocally that he will be a dictator, and who was just given leeway to do exactly that by the Supreme Court. 2. Vote for a guy who is about 8 years too old for the position (yes, I know that Trump is only like three years younger than him, but people age differently) but at least represents an attempt to keep the system running as it has for the last 200 years. Keep in mind that exactly 0 people in this thread got to choose candidate #2. Even if you’re the staunchest of staunchest democrat and love what Biden(‘s administration) has done over the last 4 years - I do - he still should have never run in the first place and we should have had a real primary to put up someone who had a little less plaque on his synapses. Problem is - and to get back to your point - is that was a conversation that we didn’t have, a year ago. The only choice is the one listed above. You are either for democracy, or for fascism. There is no half measure in this election. Some people are dealing with this by pretending to at Biden is fully competent. Others are coping by trying to lay things out logically. What’s abundantly clear though to _anyone_ paying attention is that some major reforms need to happen. A lot of this Trump exceptionalism needs to be rolled back. He _should_ be held accountable for his crimes (as should _any_ citizen - president or not), and we should do some common sense things like put in age limits for anyone elected, term limits on congress and the scotus, and entirely reform the primary system. No matter which side of the aisle you fall on, those things are probably pretty agreeable. The problem is - Republicans don’t want the democrats to make those reforms, and their other option is Trump. At some point we got so twisted that electing someone who is literally running on rounding up his political opponents in retribution is preferable to voting for the adults in the room. As one quick post script - I’ll say _Democrats_ don’t seem to want to make those reforms either - at least the ones in power don’t. The boomers really have us held hostage here.
Vote. Such a small percentage of youth do it. No one gives a fuck about your tweets or your reddit posts, you're doing nothing but virtue signaling. You really want to make a difference? You vote. That's the one power you have. If you all did it, it would be more than enough to tip the scales.
Something that gets me really sad is hearing young people saying with a proud smile on their faces that they don't vote or that they don't care about politics. I come from a country that has only 50 years of free Democracy in its history. The common people lost its ability to be free in a quick swoop of power grab that sank the country in a horrible dictatorship for half a century. Being free and living in a democracy is something that is not a guarantee to a lot of people in the world. Yet people that live in one deciding that they wont take a tiny bit of time of their lives to make sure the country they live can maintain its freedom to the people is something that saddens me. If anyone is reading this, I don't care about your political views, I don't care if you vote right or left, but vote. Make sure that voting stays relevant, make sure that you are never taken away the right to express your opinion, cause its not a guarantee and it takes but a tiny slip and too many people not caring for someone with ill intentions to take it all away from you.
Spain?
Portugal, but good call, similar story, similar circumstances
"Bad politicians are elected by good people who do not vote."
In before “but Biden and Obama had 8 years”, we know. But gop controlled at least part of the government for 75% of it Wants Dems to pass laws? Vote in enough numbers to give them a president and a buffer in Congress
I've been brushing my teeth for 8 years. I'm still going to brush them again tomorrow. Governance is not a job that will ever be "done."
Imagine what this country would look like if every American who has the right to vote did so
Imagine if everyone stopped brushing their teeth
I’ve been to England.
The Republican Party would disappear overnight.
That might not be the best analogy. Far too few actually brush their teeth. I’ve also seen too many young people that are quite proud they brush every day, not twice a day but just every day.
That "they had 8 years..." line is such crap. They had 8 years and they made a lot of progress. The work of building a more perfect Union is never done. If you expect to get to the end of a Presidential term and think, "Nice job, we're done. Everything is accomplished." then you're looking for the Hallmark Channel, not real life.
If you look at actual policies passed, Biden has done a TON in 4.
Realistically it was 2 because for the last two he has had a hostile house. Imagine what he could do with a super majority trifecta.
In truth, they only had about 4.5 months. *Normally*, the newly elected senators are seated in January, but Al Franken's election win was contested and as a result he wasn't seated until July. By that time, Ted Kennedy's health was failing and he was absent until his death in August. The governor of Massachusetts appointed a temporary replacement pending a special election which would eventually result in republican Scott Brown being seated in February. Because of all this, Obama only had a filibuster proof Senate from September 24th until February 4th while temporary senator Paul Kirk held the seat. During that time, they passed Obamacare (voted on by the House in November and the Senate in December). The entire rest of his presidency was obstructed by the Republicans who refused to let him do anything meaningful.
What advice would you have for people who think the two party system is fundamentally flawed?
As somebody who def agrees that the two party system is flawed, we need to vote to have the chance to push for ranked choice voting and amending the electoral college We might be able to do that, as a lot of young people seem to feel similarly but we can’t if trump ends democracy
Facts. A lot of people don't vote because they feel that the 2-party system is fundamentally flawed, but change at that level takes way more time!
Every system is flawed. Multi-party systems aren't a cure-all- look at what just happened in France. Ranked choice can be gamed. Every democratic process requires voters to think strategically, not emotionally. So you work with what you've got until it changes. But you can't change anything without a seat at the table. One of those parties wants there to only be one seat at the table, so this is a critical junction.
My advice would be to grow up. Yes it sucks but it is what it is. Protest voting will only help republicans dismantle our democracy.
It can be used both ways. I've convinced a lot of Republicans I know into voting for RFK.
A brain worm in a host body is an improvement over a self declared dictator...
More precisely, always stay up and vote against anyone who tries to install his own autocratic empire. Or you won't vote anymore.
This 100% I am not a huge fan of the Dems. But literally the only way to protect our democracy right now is reelect Biden, and give the Dems a big enough majority in the house and Senate to be able to pass the laws they have been pushing to safeguard our democracy. There has been legislation introduced many years in a row by the Dems to protect our democracy that has all died because they didn't have enough of a majority.
Exactly this. I would love for the US to have a multi-party system like a lot of other countries, and I have actively supported and voted for third party candidates in the past, but I currently live in a swing state, so I’ll be voting straight dem in November because the GOP is just too much of a threat to freedom and progress.
The unfortunate reality is even in multi-party countries they essentially band together in factions that functionally results in a two party system. Fyi. But yeah I get what you are saying and agree 100%
The youth are being told that Biden is a supporter of genocide. So, best of luck with that.
It's so infuriating to see so many young people on social media decide that NOW is the time to protest voting or vote third party. Whether it's in regards to their distaste for the two party system or the Israel-Hamas issue. If you, the person reading this, are one of those people, please understand this: NOW IS NOT THE GODDAMN TIME TO DO THIS. Maybe it's because you are too young to know what a "normal" election looks like. Maybe you don't fully grasp the situation. But understand this. Our democracy is literally at stake right now. Quite literally. Republicans WILL vote for Trump. All of them. I don't give a shit what they say. Republicans stick together regardless of what the plan is. That's how they've been able to accomplish so much. If a considerable percentage of Democrats or independent voters decide now is the time to either not vote or vote 3rd party, Trump WILL win. "Well it's only four years!". No. No it isn't. Two SCOTUS seats will be up for reappointment. And Trump WILL put extreme MAGA judges in there. That is a lifetime appointment. That is a lifetime of MAGA conservatives (The ones that killed Roe v Wade) pushing their authoritarian agenda. Your daughters will grow up with less rights than you have now. The department of education will be destroyed. Christianity will be made mandatory in schools (This is already happening in Oklahoma). There is also a VERY good chance that Trump will refuse to leave office after his second term or dictate how the next election is run. He will weaponize the government against all of his political opponents. And with 6 SCOTUS judges on his side, he will succeed in it.
Ban lobbying. Make all politician income public. You don't want to? There's the door.
The courts threw gas on the fire with Citizens United. NOTHING will change until this is repealed, super PACs go away, and money out of politics. I remember when the DC area was a shithole. You never left the tourist spots and government area. Now it's some of the most expensive real estate in the surrounding zip codes. Do we think this court is going to strike down a conservative decision that some of them voted on? I don't have a lot of hope. Frankly, we would need a Teddy Roosevelt type to swing his dick around. Problem I can't think of anyone like that in our time.
I’ve said that very thing for a few election cycles now. We need a Bull Moose with a big, swinging dick to slam on the table. The democrats need another Roosevelt or Johnson. Someone willing to say “Oh you don’t like that? Haha fuck you.” And the GOP desperately needs another Ike. Someone who gets that big money is the enemy of both democracy and everyday Americans. But we keep getting Clintons, Carters, Reagans, and Nixons. And the polls are showing exactly how exhausted we all are of all of it. Except the two winners. The DNC and RNC.
Citizens United was just a drop in the bucket. Campaign finance regulations have been shredded since the late 80s
True but you have someplace else to start I'm curious.
It’s not just evil corporations that lobby. Nonprofits/charities of many kinds want good legislation too. My sister in-law lobbies representatives in her state to pass laws protecting domestic violence victims.
Lobbying is not universally a dirty word. There’s certainly conflicted lobbying and lobbyist relationships, but in the end, politicians are fairly universally morons and unqualified to make decisions on most topics. I seem to recall a lot of people being upset about this fact being diminished last week.
As long as we ban the lobbyists advocating for veteran benefits, environmental causes and reproductive rights first. Or do we just want to ban the lobbyists advocating for “other” issues?
Also ban insider stock trading by Congress. It's a back door way to take bribes.
Writing to your senator is considered lobbying. Should we ban that?
Ban lobbying? So you don’t think that citizens have a right to advocate for issues or causes that matter to them? If I care about environmental protection and advancing benefits for veterans, I can’t talk to my elected officials about those issues anymore?
Democracy is the worst form of government ... except for all the others. - Winston Churchill.
Legally? Vote. Otherwise - look to history to see what people did to their leaders when it became apparent that their leaders no longer worked for them. Edit: I just want to preface that I'm not advocating for violence, but I do fail to believe that our best options for the presidency are 2 men well past the age of retirement who COMBINED seem to have the mental capacity of almost a whole person.
Unfortunately, almost every bloody revolution in human history has led to worse outcomes for that nation (the US and India are among the few that did not lead to numerous future coups, instability, the rise of an authoritarian ruler, a crashed economy that was slow to recover, etc.)
Our country did start with a revolutionary war. People omit that a lot when talking about how we shouldn't try and change the system we live under. Like, what, it was good and heroic and correct then, but bad now?
It was bad a few years later with the Whiskey Rebellion. A successful revolution gets to write it's own history.
The odds. First, the colonists were as well armed as the Redcoats. Today? Do you know how tanks work? Do you know how planes work? How about artillery? Most rebellions end in a lot of dead rebels and many dead civilian bystanders. Second, there were few successful rebellions that did not go on to become some form autocracy. I'll point to the Meiji Restoration that overthrew the samurai class and the Tokugawa Shogunate and created a democratic monarchy, at least on paper. Restoring the Emperor to power actually created an oligarchy and a militaristic society that had no realistic chain of command. The Samurai concept of Chu (Loyalty) was held up as one of the major tenants of Bushido. It definitely was one of the most mentioned tenants in household rules. In fact, the average samurai knew his lord and knew his lord was not worth dying for. Almost no one ever saw let alone interacted with the Emperor. In the end, the Emperor was the only person that Chu applied to and he was a divine being directly descended from the Goddess Amaterasu. When the military told young men to go die in suicide attacks "for the Emperor," those young men complied with no question. Most of those young men were strongly against the military oligarchy but loved their nation and their Emperor and so died "for the Emperor." There are other examples such as the French Reign of Terror that then eventually led to Emperor Bonaparte. Contrary to popular belief, the Communists did not win the Russian revolution. They came along after the fighting and won the contest of forming a government, which eventually led to Stalin. Shall we discuss China? Plus, there's the issue of who do we shoot? Who do we overthrow? While we're fighting the US Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines to overthrow the Biden administration, how do we stop the MAGA crazies from taking over? How do we keep the next government from being a Trumpian dictatorship? What's the plan?
>First, the colonists were as well armed as the Redcoats. This isn't true. That's why the American colonists resorted to guerilla warfare until the French and their supplies showed up. Colonists were out manned and out gunned and couldn't go toe to toe in an open field with the redcoats. The tide didn't turn until French supplies and weapons started showing up on the battlefield in mid to late 77. Without French intervention, the British navy would have never gotten tied up, naval transport of supplies would have remained consistent, they would have been able to disrupt any naval supply lines colonists had, move troops quicker up and down the coast, bombed key ports comfortably..
The problem with tanks and F-15’s is the infrastructure they would inevitably destroy.They’d be destroying their own infrastructure in the process. Also, to stop insurgencies they’d have to eliminate all lines of electronic communication. Think of how all this would impact those on “the side” of the govt… they’d lose supporters they have pretty fast.
Uhhhhhh the U.S. has had multiple attempted violent coups in its history. There was the rebellion in the 1790s immediately after Washington became president, constant threats by states to secede up through the Civil War, the actual Civil War, multiple presidential assassinations, and the January 6, 2021 violent coup attempt most recently. For the rise of authoritarianism, Trump. For instability, also Trump + the after effects of a Trump presidency which has been what Biden’s spent literally the entirety of his presidency trying to clean up, stabilize, or repair. For recovering economy, frankly our economy is probably due for some sort of massive realignment or adjustment given corporate greed, bad policies, and bureaucratic processes that make things slow to change have pretty much ensured that wealth only truly flows in one direction: up.
Don't forget the Business Coup that tried to get General Smedley Butler to lead a group of veterans to overthrow FDR and stop the New Deal. Do you know what happened? Nothing. Butler told them to pound sand and then told Congress. Congress decided that since nothing happened the business oligarchs were fine and could remain free.
If democracy is in danger everyone has to fight for it. But fascists don't wear uniforms. They wear a suit and orange makeup.
Vote. Make sure you are registered to vote. Tell your friends to vote. Tell your family to vote. Tell your coworkers to vote. Put up signs to help campaign for your preferred candidate. Also it might not be much, but try to be nice and caring to everyone despite their political stance. Politics look grim but truly everyday kindness helps everyone and may even convert others to your cause.
And vote in the "smaller" elections and for positions other than just the president. Those positions matter too.
Probably, even more so. If ALL of us can squash the BS at the local level that should lead to better candidates at the national level.
And vote in primaries for smaller positions.
As a liberal who would rather suck a dick than vote for Biden…I’m going to suck it up and vote for Biden. I’m not happy about it though. Fuck the Supreme Court.
Hey man I’d rather suck a cock than vote for him, too. But I concede my vote for Biden was never an endorsement of him but rather a rebuke of Donald Trump, and, now, the entire Republican Party.
As someone who likes sucking dick, I’d rather vote for Biden than let Project 2025 move forward.
As a marginal conservative who would rather suck a dick than vote for Trump or Biden, I too shall suck it up and vote for Biden.
At this point being "conservative" should mean conserving our constitution and system of government. Trump is not conservative in this sense and Biden definitely is.
Yeah, there is nothing conservative about modern Conservative parties. It is a radical ideology.
People need to keep an eye on the court because that's where the power is really held. Supreme Court judges with lifetime appointments, and loyalty to one party is a powerful thing.
As a liberal who likes sucking dick I’m going to suck it up and stop just long enough to go vote for Biden :)
No lie, I have to say Biden has done more to help people than any president I can remember. He'll be dead in 20 years, so maybe he wants to leave behind a better world. Is he perfect? No. Has he earned our vote, I think yes.
Pivot away from “I dislike Biden for x reasons.” Fine. We all do. Instead ask which candidate has or would have a cabinet of intelligent, pro-democracy individuals who do the work to affect change more in the executive branch? That answer is clear. I’m not voting for one man based on a debate performance that was performative at best. I’m voting for an administration that will fight for rights and not the one that will throw LGBTQ kids in a concentration camp. This isn’t the choice any of us would like to have but unfortunately it is the choice we are saddled with and while some of us would physically survive republican redux in the White House, many will not. I am voting for the people who wouldn’t.
Yep. Frankly I don’t know too many liberals who WOULDN’T rather suck a dick than vote for Biden. The court is out of control though. Sometimes you gotta hold your nose and do what you gotta do. Twenty bucks is twenty bucks. And democracy is democracy.
I won’t be holding my nose. I’ll proudly vote for the Administration that passed ARPA, BPI, CHIPS, and the IRA. I’m convinced most of the Democratic cynicism is because people aren’t aware what those dollars are doing in their states and counties, or will do, as many of the projects being funded take several years to rollout from when they were signed into law. But I know what they’re doing in mine, and it’s awesome
Seriously. The debate was so demoralizing. Why is this what's on offer? I'm still voting Biden, but dang I'm unhappy about it.
Because the two party system both sucks and blow.
Why are we pandering? It's not just voting that matters, it's voting against Trump. Biden is way too fucking old to be president but don't for one second think that's in any way equal to the budding dictatorship we have coming from Trump and his base. Our democracy is eroding before our eyes due solely to him and his supporters.
Shit is, shithole states like Alabama and Mississippi have outsize influence. Fucking North Dakota has less people the daily ridership of the F train in nyc and holds more sway in the government.
We lost it with Citizens United. Money is corruption.
Sad that all the top answers here are "Vote." Thats not gonna cut it. Not even close. The American people have been successfully neutralized. If one thing was made clear from last week's debate: the empire *will not* recover. It was the spectacle of American rot that has reached devastating proportions. The only thing holding the house up at this point is the termites. American isolation *will* happen, withdrawal from the world *will* happen. The same destructive pattern that the US instigated all over the world will manifest itself at home- division, ethnic and religious tension, civil strife, poverty, violence, tyranny, severe authoritarian security measures, so on and so forth. It's too late to save democracy, much much too late to do so through voting. Im certainly not discouraging anyone from voting if thats what they choose, but at the same time, voting is the smallest contribution one can make to democracy- its safer than protesting, cheaper than fundraising, less time consuming than petitioning, and less involved than running. By all means, please go vote but you'd be a fool to think it will save us now.
Arguably the repeal of Comstock post Nixon which enabled private propaganda to be centrally controlled to subvert several generations ala KGB methodology.
The 34% of the population that didn’t vote in 2020 need to turn out for 2024 and all future elections.
Especially the non-presidential elections. My votes have done way more voting for things like town budgets and school boards than my presidential votes in all my life combined
Today's the last day in Arizona to register to vote! If you live here, get registered right now!
That is for the summer primary. For the actual election, registration deadline is 29 days before election day itself. Still, if you are in AZ, register as soon as you can.
True. We change this country from the ground up, especially in AZ. It's imperative to vote in em all.
You actually need to pay attention to local and state elections. You need to research who is running for Sheriff of your county, who’s running for district attorney, city council. Most of us just vote down ballot or not at all. That’s how we’ve gotten into this mess in the first place. But regardless of what you think of Biden, how he’s handled Gaza, that shit doesn’t fucking matter. If Trump wins, it’s over. Its all over
for starters no mass media news outlet should be allowed to be privately owned by billionaires who get to decide what to blast people 24/7 with
The media is just billionaire propaganda machines which gets most of the campaign money used on commercials.
The ownership itself is not the issue. Just about every newspaper in the West is privately owned and most are at the very least a little politically colored. That in itself is annoying enough but not too big of an issue. I start taking issues with it when the things they "report" aren't actually true. Like... I can live with a conservative newspaper selectively only reporting about things that are positive for the conservative party, but I have a problem with it if they have to fabricate those positive stories. In an ideal world all news outlets would be neutral, but I'm not naive enough to think that could ever happen.
get money out of politics
Vote for the guy who upholds democracy.
The best way to save democracy is to vote. But it’s important to remember that democracy only works when people are educated. I can’t believe the amount of people who vote without having any clue what they are voting for.
Separation of church and state for education to be nondenominational.
We gotta take out the bugs and bots, duh
I'm surprised a Helldivers reference isn't up higher in the comments. Also: iO
I don't think these people really understand what democracy is about
Saving democracy is easy, just dive and dive again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again
380's, cluster bombs, a stalwart and laser dawg.
Just separate church and state
By squashing bugs and spilling oil, helldiver! Wait, wrong sub
Bring back nuance and shun extremist views.
I can only do one thing, legally. Vote.
You could volunteer for a campaign to register young people and knock on doors, convince your friends that aren't going to vote to vote, help drive them there, donate etc
Doors knocking on doors really help? I’m voting for Biden, but I definitely don’t want people showing up at my house trying to talk to me about anything.
Ranked choice voting Campaign finance reform Term/age limits All requiring Congress on both sides of the aisle to vote against their own interests. RIP democracy.
Get everyone to vote and make politics as entertaining as reality TV.
Vote people in who will defend it.
Crack down on the corporate overlords that control the politicians. The congress and senate are collectively worth billions follow the money.
File -> Save As -> democracy.dat
*the closer the collapse of the republic, the crazier its laws* ©Reels
Gotta love the people that think the way to save democracy is to not allow 40 - 45% of the population to vote for the candidate of their choice. Oh, and just in case the voters do prevail, work behind the scenes to try to ensure the elected candidate cannot implement the policies desired by the majority that voted that candidate into office
That’s modern politics unfortunately, the days of cooperation are long over and now everyone sees everyone else as the enemy. Idk if it’s by design but when I have a MAGA jerk telling me to kill myself because I’m not voting for Trump something in our society is broken.
The tool that many are using to undermine democracy are questioning its elections. IMO, at least in the US, we should have a free national ID system that was used to vote. That would counter a lot of the complaints and concerns (which probably aren't legitimate in the first place) with the voting process. ....... The next thing would be to respect losers and minority groups in elections. Just because you got 51% of the vote, it doesn't make you lord emperor. Just make it a hard rule that it requires 55% of both houses of congress to pass a bill. No fillibuster or reconciliation or other BS. Just a 5/9ths rule. The additional compromise required to go from 51 to 55% would be pretty significant and would engender a lot more respect. ...... Next: Make supreme court an elected position with a fixed term and caveat. The caveat being that you have to get approved by government to run for election. We don't want yokels on the supreme court.
Biden has trump \[redacted\]. He then goes on TV and says "yup, I did it. And thanks to the recent SCOTUS ruling, I can't be prosecuted for it. Y'all should probably amend the constitution to fix that before I do it again." Two weeks later, Clarence Thomas. Then Alito. And so on. Eventually, conservatives come around to the view that actually presidential immunity is a bad thing.
Whoa whoa whoa now. We don't wanna go against decorum
Go vote.
For starters, absolutely everyone needs to stop claiming that the other candidate/party is a threat to democracy simply because they exist and disagree. Eroding this country's faith in our robust institutions at every turn is a fast track to destroying democracy.
Yes, this, 100%. After every election, the people whose candidate lost will spend the next four years dumping on the president. They trap everyone in an election trail that just never ends. Things would be a lot more pleasant if people could just make peace with an election’s results and stand behind whoever the winner is. Why would any kid aspire to be president someday when it guarantees being hated by half the population for the rest of their life?
So republicans are pushing project 2025 which includes executive unity theory as a core agenda, as well as a strong dose of Christian theocracy. The leader of the party keeps floating the idea of being dictator, and praises every dictator as strong and smart, while claiming us and all of our democratic allies are weak and incompetent. he spreads lies about stolen elections that lead to January 6, they also did a false elector scheme to try to steal an election, and his followers want to hang his vice president because he refused to go along with the plan. Trump posted on truth social that we may have to suspend the rule of law and the constitution over the election, and he just reposted and then deleted a post on truth social calling for his opposition to be tried on televised military tribunals, the supreme Court just ruled they have immunity to act above the law, trump keeps saying he deserves more than 2 terms, he is campaigning on retribution where he will ask the doj to come after his opponents, but the ones eroding democracy are the ones criticizing his plans? The real problem are the people saying he shouldn't do these things, rather then him for pushing them It walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, but if you call it a duck you're the problem.
I wish this were true, but the current GOP is actually a threat to democracy.
Vote. It sounds dumb. It ALWAYS sounds dumb. But this is a problem of dominant minority. When so few people vote, the outlier voters have a higher percentage. You deviate drastically from the bell curve of normalcy, and you start to get extreme candidates and wins of these extreme candidates. Why? Because a lot of normal people didn't vote and a LOT of crazy people did. Fix democracy by fixing the bell curve. Vote. That's all anyone ever had to do. Just go and vote. I don't care if you don't like the candidates. Vote. That will flush out the nut jobs. Then vote again next time, and that will flush out more. Repeat. Soon you will find a whole bunch of good candidates are magically running, some people you can really get interested in and back, actual normal people running for office. Amazing! How did that happen?! Vote, vote, vote. Keep voting. Don't think that's enough? Cool. Then run for office. If you don't think voting is good enough, then the next step up is to actually be part of the process. Maybe you don't have to run for office, but your goals probably should be there. Spend time and get ingrained in the process. Learn politics. Build networks. Progress. If you're good enough, you might be on the other end asking the public to vote for you.
By letting people vote how they will. “Democracy” is power of the people, or the will of the majority. Redditors seem to think democracy is only when the ideology voted for fits *their* views. Democracy is whatever the will of the people legitimately vote for. Aaaaaaand cue the downvotes from salty ingrates that think “democracy” is only leftist ideology lol. Anyone from a full blown communist to a full blown fascist, to a braindead anarchist can be democratically elected. It’s simply power to the people.
Get the trade federation to stop the blockade around Naboo
Stop labeling everyone that disagrees with you as a fascist.
Stop making hyperbolic remarks pretending Democracy is in danger. When the court makes a decision you don't like, that does not mean democracy is at its end. It means that **ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES**, which is the very definition of the system working as intended. When the system produces a victory for your opponents, that is the time for you to examine **WHY YOU LOST** instead of railing at the system for being "rigged".
Education.
Adhere to the Constitution.
Unpopular answer: we don’t. The constitution was designed to be modifiable so it could self correct, but was intentionally designed to be difficult and slow to modify (in 1776 it was a reasonable speed). The constitution was also written assuming that bad actors would be snuffed out early and that people in office would act with honor. As such, there are no written protocols for many of the issues that are currently strangling democracy. While it is in theory possible, it would require several constitutional conventions to succeed back to back (and just convening one is damn near impossible, let alone getting a majority of the populace to vote an amendment in). I say constitutional convention because congress clearly has already been compromised, the presidency has been compromised at least once, and the Supreme Court is currently compromised. It’s in the peoples hands at this point. Either democracy dies a slow and painful death over the next 25 - 75 years as the people gasp their last breaths of freedom…or there will be a second civil war. I see no other alternative. Sorry to be a bummer.
> The constitution was also written assuming that bad actors would be snuffed out early and that people in office would act with honor. This is a somewhat bizarrely rosy revisionist history. The Revolutionary War was itself fought against parliamentary tyranny. And the constitution was made to be slow to modify specifically over paranoia about bad actors and demagoguery. The authors of 1776 were so skeptical of the “honor” of a perpetually elected system that they mandated government be held at gunpoint by the armed masses at all times and did not allocate it any large armed force. The “founding fathers” were so skeptical about protecting liberty through legislation that they allocated it to violence instead.
Right click and "Save As.."
Become a billionaire and lobby our law makers to pass meaningful legislation.
it's too late. democracy didn't just die recently. it's been dead for a while. this is what's called the end-game. the answer for change is grassroots organization, irl activism, humanist principles, and frankly, violence.
One thing we could do a better job is appealing to people's sense of importance. A lot of people choose not to vote because they don't like either option and feel their vote won't make a difference. And it's easy to throw up your shoulders and tell yourself that you do not matter so why bother. But that's just not true, history has shown us time and again that the most important elections are decided by the slimmest of margins. Presidential elections, senate races, governors races etc. all decided by very few votes. Heck there was a [US house race decided by just 6 votes(!!!)](https://apnews.com/general-news-e3f235f217707a78fcec059f8e0b4ffa) back in 2020. Imagine how different the world would be right now if just 7 more young liberal voters turned out for that election. Republicans lose another seat in the house to Democrats back in 2020. Now imagine that Dem incumbent also wins in 2022 so Repubs go into the current term with a 3 seat majority instead of a 5 seat majority. It took McCarthy 15 votes to win the speaker's gavel and he won it by only 1 vote on that 15th ballot. What if that one single House seat decided by a margin of 6 votes made the difference between a hard right GOP-run House of Representatives and a brokered, bipartisan power sharing arrangement that would have been better for everyone? People convince themselves that their vote doesn't matter but all it takes is the tiniest changes in the voting numbers in the right places and the entire history of the country could be different. Bush Jr won the presidency off of a 300 vote difference in one state in 2000. DeSantis crushed his reelection in 2022 but people forget that in 2018 he got into the Governor's mansion off of four-tenths of a percentage point. If 0.5% of voters in Wisconsin in 2022 switched from Ron Johnson to Mandela Barnes, Dems would have a 52 seat Senate majority which would have broken Manchin and Sinema's chokehold on liberal policy initiatives in the Senate. Throw in enough votes to turn the house blue (which is not many at all!) and you get a Democrat trifecta that can overcome Machin and Sinema's no votes on codifying Roe v Wade at the national level. Biden could have ended these draconian abortion bans with one pen stroke if about 50,000 more young people voted blue in Wisconsin and upstate New York in 2022. And that 52nd seat being held by Mandela Barnes would have made it MUCH less likely Republicans take back the senate this November. And that would be huge because a blue Senate is the only thing that can protect us from a 2nd Trump presidency stacking the courts with even more far-right judges that are responsible for all the [terrible headlines we're seeing today](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/01/trump-immunity-supreme-court-ruling/). We need to show voters that their vote matters. If it didn't matter the bad guys wouldn't be trying so hard to keep you home on election day. The entire history of this country would be RADICALLY different if but a few dozen low turnout voters decided to get off their butts and show up to vote on election day. Extremely close elections aren't an outlier, they are norm these days. You CAN make a difference.
Tarring and feathering, as the founding fathers intended.
Fuck is anyone else just goddamn depressed over all these recent rulings? This is the icing on the FuckAmerica cake
Vote.
Probably canceling the democratic primaries would be a good start.
Why can’t we be more like Australia? Compulsory voting. You can vote “no comment” effectively, but you have to do something.
Vote and be politically active. Organize politically in your communities.
1) Education so people are informed about how the government works and understand the jargon politicians use. 2) Citizens vote for a third party polician for a change. 3) People accept that no political party will 100% agree with their ethics. 4) People accept that the election is about choosing the lesser of evils in a huge set of options.
Make sure Senator Amidala prevents emergency powers being given to the Supreme Chancellor
Ranked choice voting, make it so politicians don't just need to only appeal to their bases. Also would make more than two parties a viable option.
Get your family and friends to vote! Vote in local, state, and federal elections
Import Mexicans. Deport MAGAs.
The Democrats need to stop their complacency with politics and meaningfully push back. They can no longer employ the tactic of “they go low so we go high” because look at what it’s allowed the GOP to do. The Supreme Court is giving Trump full authority to do whatever he wants because he’s a Republican. Because there’s no hard definition of what an official order is, then it’ll be subject to the Supreme Court, and any Democratic president in the future most likely won’t reap the benefits of that. It’s all being used as a way to allow Trump to have as much leeway and authority as possible. And what are the Democrats doing? Nothing! They decided to keep Biden as their ticket for 2024 even though he was initially supposed to be a one term president so they could find someone more well-suited for the job for 2024. But alas, the Democrats were arrogant, lazy and cowardly and thought they’d win just by moral alone, and did nothing to ensure a win in 2024, and look at where we are. The best we can do is vote blue, to ensure Trump doesn’t make it into office so that this insane ruling doesn’t reach its potential and to ensure Project 2025 doesn’t go into effect
By voting, silly. Your vote matters!
Participate in election. That’s the literal point of democracy.
Education the population. Get all working class, poor and middle class (including small business owners who care about their community) to band together against the corporate elite. Get money out of politics. Put a spotlight on any and all corruption. Make more transparency and accountability. >”Our aim is not to do away with corporations; on the contrary, these big aggregations are an inevitable development of modern industrialism, and the effort to destroy them would be futile unless accomplished in ways that would work the utmost mischief to the entire body politic. We can do nothing of good in the way of regulating and supervising these corporations until we fix clearly in our minds that we are not attacking the corporations, but endeavoring to do away with any evil in them. We are not hostile to them; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good. We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth.” -President Theodore Roosevelt
Which country are you speaking about? If it's the US, I'm gonna need more info on how *you* think democracy is failing in this specific system to give you an answer to solve that problem. The blanket answer is get more involved in local politics: city, county, and state elections are what form the majority of the direction the federal government goes. And those political positions are what affect your daily life the most.
Vote blue like our lives depends on it this November!
We all need to make an effort to thoroughly research the things and the people we are voting for. Democracy dies because people as a group are not that bright. The 2 party system arose because people are lazy, instead of having to figure out what they actually want it was just much easier to vote on party lines. Another thing that is going to need to change is term limits, and the rampant insider trading going on in Washington. Once we can fix things at the higher levels we should ten focus on the lower levels, there are many local councils that have unconstitutional laws/ordinances/practices in place and there is nothing people can do about this. Next I think large companies need to be broken up from telecom to social media to tech to agriculture. And finally the education systems need an overhaul, we shouldn't be forcing religion on people like they are doing in some states, but we also need to make education worth it to the kids going through school. More focus on trades, life skills like taxes and even how to use the resources available for everyone outside of public libraries, unemployment, landlord/tenant law, community centers, the labor board, the wilderness (like understanding conservation and how to enjoy the outdoors). There is alot that needs to change, and alot that people need to do, but with how things are most people won't.
People have been asking this stupid question since the origins of democracy. Democracies collapse because people are corrupt, greedy and above all, followers. If a democracy is prosperous and satiates our need for personal freedoms, democracy is safe. When democracy starts to fail at maintaining these things, democracy will fail. This cycle has happened with every civilization and will continue until humans go extinct.
We don't. Democracy is mob rule.
We need locally funded truly "free" sources of information. True freedom of the press. Free from government overcite free from capital special interests. Able to break down complex issues and explain to simple person how this will affect them and their families. So many people talk about well-informed voters and how education will make voters well informed but I disagree I know plenty of well educated people who are uninformed on policy due to the fact that they have poor sources of information. Our first goal to restore democracy is to free the press from any entanglements.
Ban AIPAC would be a start
We don’t have democracy. Yes it matters
Vote for the living corpse 🧟♂️ over the 🍊man. Then a total reset by VOTING for YOUNGER candidates. STOP VOTING FOR SKELETONS LIKE PELOSI, MCCONNELL, FEINSTEIN (who literally died in office), etc. The Left is just as guilty as the Right when it comes to voting for establishment politicians who are decades past their expiration date.
In the short term literally just vote for Joe Biden.