Most Americans disapprove of Trump on issues; Americans don’t trust Dems in Congress more to handle problems: Poll
8 months ago by return2ozma to c/politics
when elected, does nothing to fight the Fascists, reverse their worst atrocities, or prevent them from coming back to power
Yep. If Democrats ever gain power again, watch them keep ICE pretty much the same way it is now, keep most of Trump's tariffs, not restore SNAP or USAID funding to previous levels, etc, etc, etc.
We just have to be grateful that the lesser evil party didn't add too many new atrocities before they calmly and politely cede power to the fascists again.
Exactly. Could one of the blue MAGA folks let me know when Newsom publicly announces he supports completely dismantling DHS and rolling back the post-9/11 surveillance state? You cannot seriously pretend to want to fight fascism if dismantling the tools of the fascists isn't the first thing you intend to do when in power.
It has some serious Lord of the Rings vibes. The surveillance state and the unconstitutional powers created after 9/11 are this immensely powerful tool created for evil ends. But after the evil is defeated, the nominally good guys choose to not to dismantle the evil tools, but to keep them, telling themselves that they will be used for good. Except they cannot be used for good, as they are fundamentally evil. Meanwhile I'm over here shouting, "cast it into the fire!" But they decide to keep it every time.
It's like you have absolutely no understanding of how the system actually works, and have chosen to ignore history.
The GOP is never going to cede one inch to the Dems on anything, ever. Obama picked the ACA plan because it was based on a GOP idea and they fought him tooth and nail until the final vote. Then they turned around and demanded the Supreme Court abolish it.
The only way you'll get any change under the current system is to elect a Dem super majority in every election for the next fifty years.
YOU have chosen to ignore history. And how typically in authoritarian takeovers, the first step to fighting the takeover is to abandon the captured opposition party and to start fresh with something new. A popular front is usually needed to defeat them. Authoritarians often let toothless opposition parties continue to operate. And there are always blind fools like yourself who insist that they must be supported, though they are just another tool of the autocrat.
The only way you’ll get any change under the current system is to elect a Dem super majority in every election for the next fifty years.
This shows you are not a serious person. If that is your solution, then I can only conclude that you actually support Trump and the Fascist party.
Democrats are not a real opposition party. They are the potemkin opposition, fully captured by the Fascists.
Dems right now are Fascist light not as crazy but fucking useless and on the same payroll as fascist full fat
So, what exactly is your plan for the 2026 election?
How exactly are you going to counter Trump?
Be specific and provide as many details as possible.
Fuck elections. General strike until our demands are met.
Hold their precious 'economy' hostage while we still can -- before they replace us all with robots.
Nah, you're arguing in bad faith.
Obama picked the ACA plan because it was based on a GOP idea and they fought him tooth and nail until the final vote. Then they turned around and demanded the Supreme Court abolish it.
The only way you’ll get any change under the current system is to elect a Dem super majority in every election for the next fifty years.
They had a Dem supermajority during that time. And what did they do with it? They bent over backwards trying to 'reach across the aisle' and giving the GOP every single thing they asked for.
Expect the same thing if they come into power again.
They had a Dem supermajority during that time. And what did they do with it? They bent over backwards trying to ‘reach across the aisle’ and giving the GOP every single thing they asked for.
And what is your alternative?
What should we do in the 2026 elections?
Please provide a detailed plan.
Elect people who are running on assigning corruption charges instead of vibes
As I said in my other post, elections will never fix it. Our power lies in General Strike.
Put all those new warehouses to good use.
Pot meet kettle. A Dem supermajority means nothing when they do nothing but play controlled opposition.
Well, to be honest, if the choices between being fucked hard and fucked softly….
Except that attitude pretends that the election in front of you is the only election that will ever happen ever again. It's a short-sighted view that leads us to exactly where we are now. We've had 30 years of Democrats telling everyone "don't boycott this election. This is the most important one in history. If you don't vote for us, democracy is dead forever. I know we're not really going to do anything to change things, but what choice do you have?"
In retrospect, we would have been a lot better off today if in 2016 the entire left wing of the Democratic party just boycotted the election entirely. The fact that Hillary came close to winning is the only reason the neoliberal wing was able to retain any credibility.
I boycotted 2016 and look where we are now. I was young and stupid and should have toed the line. I fucking hate Hillary and everything she represents, but I could not comprehend at the time what Trump represented
I was verbally harassed by a dozen picture perfect Karen's in a highschool gym for standing on the Bernie side during the 2016 caucus. They did not make a guy want to side with them.
I voted green party that year and it's the vote I regret the least. I went on to vote for Biden and then Harris
Thank you. Considered alternatives many times, but mostly in primaries (because it only helps the worst people win in general).
I don't think most people even understand what a primary is (and that we're having them literally right now). Not happy with elected reps? Go vote, pick your team (90% don't bother). Mail-in if disabled (any state). Check out candidates online. Lots of alts and progressives on primary ballots (on Dem side).
Holy shit, people keep lecturing about how we shouldn't blame voters, but an awful lot of them still support him on various issues, FFS.
I mean....34% approve of his tariffs? What in the actual fuck.
And he still polls higher than Biden on mental ability? Jesus, I would have taken Biden in a coma over this shit.
34% of the voter base are his voters. If he starts polling in the 20% range he’s losing supporters. Until then these are the centrists being fickle. 34% of the voter base doesn’t see any problem with him raping children.
He hit 30% in one poll
Which is nice but at 20% he’s lost 30% of his base. 10-15% represents the Jan6 bois. You’ll never lose them.
Like 34% of the country are bots. They just do what they’re programmed to do.
I have a bet going with my father in law over the US midterms. He believes that the American midterms will swing things towards the Democrats and their country will get back on track. I took the cynical bet and said there was no way midterms would swing government control, because a) a large portion of the population is not inspired to go out and support the Democrats even if they don’t love the current administration and b) I fully expect whatever amount of fraud is necessary to ensure a Republican win despite poor polling.
I always hope I’m wrong and just taking being a pessimist, but articles like this make me realize that I might well be drowning my sorrows in a very nice bottle of wine in November.
Democrats had 4 years to prosecute Trump after Treason Day. No shit we "don't trust dems more". Sure, some dems individually are worth a damn, but 90% of them belong in prison (along with 100% of republicans) for enabling this shitshow.
Wash away the political class, kill Citizens United, and start the slate clean. Anyone eith "connections" is isolated and not allowed back in. All freshies. All new parties. (Until we can abolish the State that is)
Wash away the political class, kill Citizens United, and start the slate clean. Anyone eith “connections” is isolated and not allowed back in. All freshies. All new parties.
Election by lottery. Every eligible citizen is entered into the lottery to serve in the Senate. Each year on December 1st, 100 citizens are randomly selected to serve a 10-year term, to report to their duty by January 1st. The Senate will consist of 1000 of these people, with 10% of them replaced every year. (If a Senator dies, retires, or otherwise becomes unfit for office during their term, they are not replaced until their term ends, and the Senate will be slightly smaller than 1000.) The first year and the last year of your service in the Senate are special. During your fist year, you will be mentored by a more experienced Senator; you will have full voting rights, but you will be "Silenced" -- not able to propose new bills/votes or address the Senate -- until your second year. During your last year, you must choose at least one new Senator to mentor.
If selected, service in the Senate is considered mandatory, like being selected for a military draft. Individual Senators can be excused from service or allowed to retire before the end of their 10-year term, but only with approval from a 66% supermajority vote of the Senate. (This is important to help avoid selection bias in the Senate. Otherwise, certain demographics may be underrepresented if that demographic is more likely to refuse service or retire early. It's also important because the people who don't want to be in government are exactly who we need in government. If citizens are allowed to refuse service in the Senate, that would bias selection toward the type of people who want power, which may defeat the entire purpose.) Being a Senator should still be a prestigious, respected, and well-paid position, of course -- that will only further encourage people to accept their selection if chosen.
If, at any time or for any reason, the Senate has less than 500 Senators, a special selection will be performed immediately, and enough random citizens will be selected to bring the total number of Senators back up to 1000. (This includes the very first selection, since you'd be starting with 0 Senators, which is less than 500.) Since 100 new Senators must be placed every year, replacing the longest-serving ones, some of these Senators chosen in 'special selections' may end up serving terms of less than 10 years. (For example, in the very first year of the Senate, 10% of the Senators chosen will only serve for one year.)
The Senate can vote to "Silence" individual Senators -- to prevent them from proposing new bills/votes and prevent them from speaking to address the Senate, with a 66% supermajority vote. This can be a temporary punishment or a permanent injunction for the remainder of that Senator's term, at the Senate's discretion. Must have an individual vote for each individual Senator to be Silenced -- you can't Silence entire voting blocs with a single vote. Silenced senators, though, will still be in the Senate and will still vote just like any other Senator.
The Senate may (optionally) appoint a Chief Officer, who serves as the head of the Executive Branch, at the Senate's pleasure. The Chief Officer (and indeed any official in the government outside of the Senate and Judicial Branch) can be removed and replaced at the Senate's discretion at any time, with a simple majority vote. This Chief Officer can be a Senator, but doesn't have to be. Doesn't even have to be a citizen. It can be literally anyone the Senate agrees on (except for any previous Judge or Commander in Chief). Or, if the Senate chooses, they can have no Chief Officer at all, and instead have the heads of each individual department of the government report directly to the Senate. In the event of an exactly tied vote in the Senate (which will probably be very rare), the Chief Officer (if one exists) may cast the tie-breaking vote.
The Senate may (optionally) appoint a Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, only if the Senate has declared war on another country. They may choose to appoint any General or Admiral who is currently serving or has previously served in the military to this role. The Senate will delegate control of the country's military to the Commander in Chief, who may make sweeping and rapid decisions about the military without consulting the Senate, on the presumption that their experience and ability to respond quickly will enable them to achieve better military results than the Senate or Chief Officer could. The Commander in Chief may only serve during times of declared war, and must step down from their position at the end of the war, ceding control of the military back to the Senate (optionally through the Chief Officer). Like the Chief Officer, the Commander in Chief can be removed and/or replaced at any time with a simple majority vote from the Senate, even if the war is still ongoing. No single person can serve as both Chief Officer and Commander in Chief -- not concurrently nor successively.
The Senate will also vote to appoint judges to the higher courts, including the Supreme Court, with a 57% vote required for successful appointment. They may only nominate well-qualified and experienced judges who are well versed in the law and the (new) constitution. These judges will serve for 20-year terms, after which they must retire and may never again serve in government in any other capacity. They can only be removed and replaced with a 75% supermajority vote from the Senate. (To prevent a constitutionally misguided Senate from quickly and easily replacing any judge that rules their new law to be unconstitutional.) And their most important job (as is supposedly the case already) is to rule on whether or not laws passed by the Senate and actions taken by the Executive Branch are allowable and enforceable according to the (new) constitution.
This ensures:
The Senate always consists (mostly) of regular people with no political background, and people who are not particularly associated with or beholden to the ultra-wealthy.
Some institutional knowledge and experience is built up and retained -- at any point, ~10% of the Senate will have 9+ years of experience in government.
There will be reduced motivation for 'lobbying' and bribery. Since nobody is running for reelection and election campaigns as a whole are a thing of the past, Senators have no need to seek out donations and campaign contributions. They will not be concerned about their voting record having impacts on future campaign contributions. (And if any of them are greedy, well, the Senate is in full control of Senator's salaries. If they want more money, they can just vote to give themselves more money. No need to seek out bribes.) There's also no need for the society as a whole to go through the effort and expense of election campaigns anymore -- now they can put this effort and money into more useful causes.
Nobody can have a lifetime career as a Senator. Every Senator will come from a non-political background and will probably be expecting to return to a non-political life after their 10-year term. They will (generally) understand the struggles and perspectives of common people, and (unless they're very old when selected) they will expect to have to live as a common person under the laws they passed once their term ends -- if they vote to pass a terrible law, they'll have to experience the consequences of that terrible law later.
As the saying goes, "Those who want power the most are the ones you least want to have power." In this system, the Senate will be full of people who never wanted or asked for power, and the people who want and seek power won't be able to get it by running for the Senate, at least, because there's no way to try to be a Senator -- it's all just random luck. (Though they could still seek out positions in the Judicial Branch, the Executive Branch, or private industry. In the first two cases, it would be up to the Senate's judgement to prevent them from gaining that power.)
The Senate will always be (approximately, statistically) representative of the people. Generally, all demographics and ideologies of the citizenry will be proportionally represented. (If the country is 50% female, you can expect ~500 Senators to be female. If the country is 7.2% gay, you can expect ~72 Senators to be gay. If 12% of the country is black, you can expect ~120 Senators to be black. If 20% of the population is atheist, you can expect ~200 Senators to be atheists. Etc.)
No powerful "President" or "Prime Minister" or anything will exist. The Chief Officer (if present at all) is only there to be a manager on behalf of the Senate, to handle the day-to-day mundanities of running government services and/or respond to urgent situations that are developing too quickly to organize a vote in the Senate. The Chief Officer's power is inherently fragile and limited, because they can be replaced quickly and easily at any time if they displease a majority of the Senate.
Random selection isn't great. There's a much greater chance of seating someone with zero life experience or insane ideas or maybe just illiterate. Unless you start excluding people for various reasons, then you're basically back where we already are.
Even if a selection is statistically average, you still get the tyranny of the majority.
There’s a much greater chance of seating someone with zero life experience or insane ideas or maybe just illiterate.
That's fine. And there definitely will be some of them in this Senate. But they will only be 1 vote out of 1000.
As long as the majority of people in the country have life experience, sane ideas, and can read, it will be fine. And even the inexperienced, insane illiterates out there will get their proportional representation.
(Though I would be open to having eligibility requirements beyond only citizenship -- such as being at least 18 years old, not currently incarcerated, and having a high school or equivalent education.)
What about the extremely demotivated? It sounds like a good system but then the idea of being selected myself occurs to me and like, I'd rather die than have to do that job. People suck, and 1000 is a lot of people.
Nice thoroughly fleshed out idea though, youve obviously put a lot of thought into that. Props.
Nothing wrong with a couple of dummies in there. It might take 1,000 years before someone’s dumb as Margarine Taylor Green blesses the halls. It will motivate the public to keep the public educated and informed
This is why we need a new party in America that’s actually left of center.
National ranked choice voting, get rid of electoral college, outlaw gerrymandering, restructure the Supreme Court, overturn citizens united, restore the fairness doctrine, and we will finally have some viable options. It will probably take an Article V constitutional convention to get there.
https://www.commoncause.org/...
This makes me feel like a convention isn't the right way to go while money still equals power in government. I'm not sure what the process for outlining how the convention would work would be, but I don't think going in blind because it's a nuclear option is a great idea.
The reason I suggest Article V is that it’s the only option within our system of government remaining, since the 3 federal branches are so compromised by corruption.
Theoretically it could work because the delegates would be our state representatives. These are people we know in real life, whose homes we know the location of…etc. We the people could apply certain pressures to ensure they respect our demands and don’t go off the rails.
The establishment politicians will claim as you do here - that there are too many unknowns and it’s too dangerous to attempt. In actuality, they simply know they would lose their power and grift as a result, so of course they will fight this tooth and nail. The truth is that the real chaotic unknown happens with a violent coups, which is the final remaining option. Personally, I’d prefer the reform method outlined in our constitution to that any day.
That's a nice wishlist, but I don't see a new party doing anything.
They'd have to do that under the Democratic Party. That's the only way it's happening.
The whole point of throwing a constitutional convention would be to go around the useless fucking Congress that that’s been captured for 20 years
How is that going to happen without having a party elected into office though?
Well my friend your local elections matter. They are the foundation of this country. If I can’t trust you to elect a trustworthy person to represent your town or state…. Then how can I trust you to form a political party at the national level? So to answer your question, go elect someone accountable for the state level, then we can get the states together for that convention. You probably have a bunch of elected leadership ships in your local government that aren’t politically affiliated because it’s not important locally. But for some reason, it is nationally and the reason is money.
Is it really breaking news that the whole government is full of idiots?
Sad shit.
You can always count on the uniparty to vote in Israel’s best interest while screwing American citizens
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Of course not. We have only two choices of party:
The Fascist party.
The party that tells you to vote for them lest the Fascists win, but when elected, does nothing to fight the Fascists, reverse their worst atrocities, or prevent them from coming back to power.
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