• gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      Cuomo is already planning to run in the general as an independent, or under a third party. And I’m sure he’ll rub a shitload of money on his campaign via his PAC.

      Fucking citizens united, man. It continues to be an utter travesty of a court decision.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Fucking citizens united, man. It continues to be an utter travesty of a court decision.

        It was the culmination of a whole series of increasingly-disastrous court decisions.

        • Default Username@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 days ago

          Turns out, when you allow any one person to have massive amounts of power (money in the case of capitalism), they will do everything possible to seize more power.

          You can also consider the fact that elitism was a massive part of the founding of the US, which is why we have situations like the Senate where land votes more than people, the Electoral College which does the same thing, not banning slavery from day 1 which we’re still seeing the effects of to this day, not having any method for federal direct ballot initiatives, etc.

          The issue is capitalism itself, as individuals are still allowed to hold power over other people one way or the other.

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            You can also consider the fact that elitism was a massive part of the founding of the US, which is why we have situations like the Senate where land votes more than people, the Electoral College which does the same thing

            To be fair, (a) at the time, that was considered to be an improvement over an upper legislative chamber made out of actual hereditary aristocracy, and (b) the US was designed to be a confederation of sovereign individual States, more closely resembling how the EU works today.

            (I wonder how many folks here who are sharply critical of how ‘undemocratic’ the US Senate is would get mad at me if I, in turn, advocated for abolishing the European Commission and Council of Ministers, so that Germany could be even more dominant over Greece etc. than it already is.)

            • Default Username@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              1 day ago

              a) Improvement doesn’t necessailly mean good or effective in the long term.

              b) The design ceases to matter when the execution doesn’t match. Actions speak louder than words. We have also given the federal executive branch much more power than necessary, and they have continuously ceased more power, whether that be through intelligence agencies acting extrajudicially and unconstitutionally (NSA, CIA, FBI, etc.), waging war on drugs (and therefore, the American people) and militarizing the police, the president having immunity for all crimes that are “official acts”, etc.

              There is also the undemocratic Supreme Court, who with Marbury v Madison, gave themselves the ability to essentially unilaterally enact laws.

              I can’t comment on EU politics because I don’t know much about it.

          • SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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            1 day ago

            Also, to be fair to Jefferson (whether or not he deserves it), he was deluded enough to have a vision of a pastoral America, in which each family would have a decent-sized plot of land to live on and farm. (I say “deluded,” because even in his time the actual, urban U.S. was taking shape, in the form of big cities like Boston.) You can see a concrete example of this in his township-and-range system, which was the basis of the Public Land Survey System which has shaped so much about U.S. geography. At least in his reckoning, future Americans would have had a lot more control of their lives by owning a big chunk of land that they and their families could fuck off to and make a living independently, should the political situation become disagreeable.

            Also, pertinently, the distribution of voters was supposed to be a lot more even among the states. (Which means they should’ve scrapped the Constitution already in 1807 once the Lewis and Clark expedition reported back to him about the landscape of the interior.)

  • As party leaders fret about whether Kamala Harris lost for being seen as too “woke” on various issues, the coastal deep-blue enclaves are completely disconnected from that conversation, and the party’s dreadful standing on the national stage.

    Holy framing, Batman! This is the answer to performative “wokeness” in stead of addressing the issues at their material roots. This not some sort of ivory tower elitism of extremists, detached from the conversation, it is an answer to it.

  • Che Banana@beehaw.org
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    2 days ago

    there needs to be more, the gentocracy is a progress killer…liberal leaders are themselves conservative by default because of their age

  • meep_launcher@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    I feel like America is an alcoholic who is hitting rock bottom.

    There’s a YouTuber, struthless, who talks about his struggle with addiction, and one thing he said was “when you hit that snag in your life that feels like everything is ending, ask ‘how can this be the best thing to ever happen to me?’”

    Maybe that’s what we need to start doing. We need to sober up and stop this cycle.

    • moseschrute@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      Omg I love that guy. Haven’t bought his second book yet, but I loved his first one. We need more illustrated books for adults. His art style is so cool.