It already was dead for a long time.
this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2025
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If you're not good at US history: 1789 was when the Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation.
time to flee to the old world from prosecution and religious pressure lol
Electric Boogaloo
Aside from this being a little fucking melodramatic and defeatist, the thing that really bothers me is the implicit assumption that if only we'd all just vote blue no matter who we wouldn't have this problem, like the Democratic Party hasn't been kowtowing to and enabling those same oligarchs to undermine our democracy. It's like they're standing in the rubble of a bombing and saying, 'This is happening because you chose the short fuse on the bomb, if only you had chosen the long fuse we ~~wouldn't have noticed this happening quite so quickly~~ wouldn't be having this problem!'
Don't get me wrong, boom tomorrow is definitely better than boom today, but it's important to not forget that there was never not going to be a boom.
What I don't get from the American people, who have always portrait themselves as champions of everything with this attitude now of "there was no way to avoid it because we are legless turtles and all we can do is vote blue or red and hope our daddies do right by us"
True, the last election would not had saved you but anyone with a firing neuron saw this coming 40 years ago and you all did fuck all to avoid it while still making ignorant jokes about the French being cowards
there's a reason The Grapes of Wrath has that turtle section in it...
Take North Korean propaganda, paint it red white and blue and give it a specific set of "freedoms" and you'll have any answer of "how". We're literally made to be this way. Even those of us with a "firing neuron" are a result of this propaganda, granted just not in the intended way. Drowning and understanding why we're drowning ends the same way.
Indeed, although anyone who says they knew what shape this would take 40 years ago was either a liar or a time traveler, I've been watching it go to shit for my entire life. I too tried voting blue for 30 years only to watch them unwind and fall apart when the chips were down. Now I favor rather more extreme measures, but most Americans are like 'waah, I keep choosing the lesser evil, why do we keep getting evil?!'
Indeed, although anyone who says they knew what shape this would take 40 years ago was either a liar or a time traveler
Hmmm maybe for common folks like you and I. But there have been plenty of literature warning about this, it is our own fault (talking in general, not just about America as I am not American) not to heed the advise of those who actually looked into this. For most of us, it is not that it was impossible to predict, it was more like it was much more convenient to believe the comfortable lie than to face the harsh reality
The world is absolutely flooded with people warning about literally everything all the time. Sometimes a few of them happen to be right; that doesn't make them prescient, just lucky. Broken clocks, and all that. Whose advice do you follow? The guy who says fascism is on the rise, or the guy who says the economy is going to unrecoverably tank? Does it matter that both of them have pretty good evidence to suggest that they might be right? Or that there are 400 more books released in any given year that claim that fascism is on the decline and the economy is booming like there's no tomorrow, and that they also have pretty good evidence to suggest that they might be right? This is the nature of prediction: it's all down to how you interpret the signs and signals.
For most of us, it is not that it was impossible to predict, it was more like it was much more convenient to believe the comfortable lie than to face the harsh reality
The more recent you look the more that becomes the case, but 40 years ago anyone who said 'in 40 years we're going to have a fascist dictator of a president who wants to ransack the courts he packed' or whatever would just be one more whisper in the hurricane.
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I've been hoping to hear some sort of glimmer of a thought from someone that when America does wrestle control back from the fascists, and history says you will, one way or another, that you don't just rebuild the same system that produced Trump and his techno-fascist mates in the first place.
This interview was the first time I've actually heard it.
IDK why people are so hopeful of fascism falling within their lifetime?
The fascists in power now have technology in everybody's pockets, even your light bulbs for crying out loud
They can track you within feet across the country. And a lot of this stuff, you can't really avoid. You can't really go off the grid if you want to have a normal job now
Not only that, look at China. China is still here and has been for quite some time...
Buttigieg is establishment democrat. Actually listen to him instead of doing what most people do, which is stare at him and wait for him to "say something gay" and then be impressed that he's such a great orator. He's never advocated for the social and financial overhaul that the US needs. He's argued that the system is sufficient for our best outcomes, the same system that is currently on fire.
This reminds me of Obama so much. On one hand it would be nice to have another leader who unites the country, but Obama wasn't necessarily good for our nation's long-term future. He was not a leftist or advocate for the poor, he was also establishment Dem/Liberal who passed every opportunity to create real and lasting change in the country.
Buttigieg is currently touring the right-wing spaces and dropping his messages there without resistance because he's advocating for preserving the wealth in the country. He's tacitly being endorsed by the billionaire class. They want a return to normalcy, and Buttigieg may have exactly what the country needs to get there, which is clear messaging, hypnotic blue eyes and an appeal to many men's latent curiosity about what what a strong homosexual male even looks like... or if nothing else, an avenue for libs and neo-libs to feel performatively progressive by dropping his name. It's enthralling to the masses and we should all be terrified.
He is going to be a strong candidate if we have elections again, and I would take him over Trump, but we need to understand what he is. He is NOT our leftist savior, he's barely more progressive than a liberal savior.
I want to make it clear, if he's the final candidate against like, Mecha Trump or Don JR or Vance or someone equally absurd, we all better push Buttigieg's booty up that hill and I will wave that rainbow flag along with everyone else. But we have to understand that it's a band-aid on a massive infected wound that's bleeding out.
I'm not gonna disagree with any of that, as I'm not super familiar with him. I'm just saying it's the first time during this entire Trump fiasco I've heard anyone even suggest that maybe we shouldn't just revert to the pre-Trump status quo should anything ever actually be done about stopping him. I'm hoping others are saying it, I just haven't heard it.
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Yep, we now basically have a one party system. Both sides are controlled by the 1%. We need a party that will get rid of the 1%, but that will never happen. They learned their lesson with FDR and watch for someone like him just to make sure he doesn't get in to office.
I.. I'm conflicted. Buttigieg talks a great game, I like much of what he has to say, but at the same time when he was in the 2020 primary I read an article that talked about how he had the most corporate/PAC support of any candidate and I wonder.. does he actually believe what he's saying, or is he just charismatic enough to pull off seeming like he does and he's just like every other career politician? And also even if he's 100% sincere and he wins the white house in 2028, he doesn't have a free hand because the money required to win a national election comes with rather sturdy strings attached, so I don't think he can accomplish what he claims to want.
But it is, I will admit, rather refreshing to find a Democrat who does in fact have some good-sounding ideas about how to make things better instead of just 'vote for me or the world will literally blow up!11'
Watch his messaging when he tours FOX and other right-wing podcasts and youtube channels. He talks to the right without without resistance or pushback from the hosts because he's advocating preservation of existing systems instead of actual overhaul to our nation's policies and financial systems.
He is likely going to be our next Obama. Charming and beloved by many, but secretly propped up by the billionaire class who want to keep feasting from the table of status-quo. Obama was a great leader, but as a president, he passed on very real opportunities to make lasting change over and over. He didn't exercise his power in any remotely overreaching way even when he had house and senate. He didn't pack the Supreme Court and didn't enshrine rights in any way that would protect people. He could have rammed single-payer healthcare through and been hated and loved by many, probably impeached, but we would have had something great from it.
We really need to do better as a nation understanding the different between leadership and management. And we need to pick people for our local and community elections that have these qualities. They are the ones who prop up the larger system and the ones who largely run unopposed because people are far more fascinated with Buttigieg's dazzling blue eyes than what their local comptroller believes.
Yeah, I just watched the ~hour long interview he did with Jon Stewart that someone posted, and like it was all good-sounding ideas that may do some good but don't meaningfully challenge the status quo. Which is a pretty good summary of Democratic policy for the last 40 years. I'll give it to him though, he's definitely charismatic (I can't help but like him even though I think he's not very far left of, say, Hillary Clinton who is a full-on neoliberal) and he could probably win and be a damned sight better than the current administration. But also that's maybe not the best long-term because we need the system to fail messily as it is right now to wake people up to the alternatives. I hate advocating for accelerationism because even if the harm caused in the short term is outweighed by the harm prevented long-term, I still have a hard time advocating for things that I know will definitely cause harm.
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The d’s had 50 years to come up with their own plan. And they did nothing. We had a choice of different sides of the same coin and here we are.
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