DISCLAIMER: I’M NOT FROM USA.
From the outside looking in, it seems like at least half of the inaction of the “left” is because ol’ Chucky just hinders everything.
“We wrote a strong letter” was probably the first time I actually, genuinely didn’t understand how he’s still the leader of the party.
Since then I’ve done some digging, and it seems like the guy is actually quite delusional. Not even his imaginary friends vote for him, which is kinda sad. Understandable though.
Now he’s talking about voting on whether they should block the military action in Venezuela. The ongoing one. The one that’s been planned publicly for months.
So, how does he still have his job?
The Democrats are cowards and fucking terrible politicians. They’re also owned by big money as much as the Republicans.
The entire US Congress except like 4 people needs to fucking go. Not just Schumer.
That’s a fair point. Almost seems like a two-party system is fundamentally flawed.
Yeah it’s part of the problem. I think it’s exacerbated by the fact that the US basically legalized bribery with Citizens United.
Fairness doctrine being abolished was the end of America.
It’s one bullet point on a long list that got us here. Installing a Christian nationalist dictatorship has been the right’s goal for 50+ years.
People give the fairness doctrine too much credit; First it’s partially responsible for the current mentality of all opinions matter no matter how stupid. But more importantly it only ever applied to broadcast TV and Radio, not cable or satellite, or the Internet. So it never would have applied to Fox News, for instance.
It’s not a silver bullet, but it was a very useful way to ensure people didn’t become radicalized by just listening to one side lie constantly. There’s a reason why Reagan and Nixon wanted it gone, and we’re living through the repercussions of not having it now; radicalized far right extremists everywhere and in control of the government. Also, we could have made updates to expand it or introduce new legislation to curb extremism on other platforms.
Definitely far from perfect but better than our current reality.
On the contrary, lots of people were radicalized by hearing people like new age healers given the same airtime as medical doctors.
It’s taken 20 years to fail at making the publicly funded internet a utility. The purpose of the doctrine was to govern publicly owned airwaves. I strongly believe it would have been and is impossible to expand the FCCs jurisdiction to include privately owned networks. I also strongly believe that the current administration would abuse the fuck out of these regulations.
Yet here we are, with some people believing vaccines cause autism and the far right extremists to boot. I personally would’ve taken more idiots harming themselves with their new age junk than what we got.
Don’t misunderstand, I agree it absolutely wouldn’t have been a catch all and even in its time it lacked the teeth to do much but at least it was something. It combined with a stronger education system could’ve prevented a lot of what we’re dealing with now.
More legalized. Lobbying was already legalized bribery. Citizens United was just them making sure they get to pick who they bribe.
And also allowed them to bribe anonymously, don’t forget that very important part.
I think it’s not even the fundamental flaws that make it so bad (they could theoretically be worked-around or fixed), I think at some point the system was captured by a group that to this day ensures both parties remain ineffectual and operate towards the same war goals.
Saying “the whole thing is a pantomine” seems like a lazy throwaway remark from some stranger you meet at a bar or your disillusioned uncle, and yet it’s exactly the conclusion you have to come to. We are controlled by the illusion of democracy and illusion of own influence
Idiotic takes like that are as much of the problem as anything else.
Holy hell, the number of know-nothings who upvoted that nonsense…
If you don’t think the Dems and MAGA serve the same Sociopathic Oligarchs, you are delusional.
They are like the management tier in your workplace. Some managers are pretty cool, and some are terroristic assholes who make every moment at work agonizing. But despite the difference in approach, they both want you to toe the company line, and put the company’s interests ahead of EVERYTHING. Nice or not, they both want to enslave and exploit you on behalf of the company.
We’d all rather work under the nice manager, but if we really want to make the workplace work for the workers, then we have to make the managers fear the workers enough that they appeal the top. That’s unlikely, and eventually we will be forced to bypass them, and take our grievances to the top ourselves.
Yes, there’s a point to what you’re saying, but to paint with the same broad brush upon them both is not only delusional at best, but in real-world terms, actually toxic in terms of influencing voting bases. Shame on you.
Just look at the public voting records of Congress going back ages, and see how Dems (warts and all) actually do the right thing most of the time. Decade after decade…
When people bang their drums upon ‘money playing a part of politics’ being outrageous, unexpected and ‘breaking the system,’ what they’re really saying is that they fundamentally don’t understand capitalism… the very system they grew up in.
“Both sides being the same” is beyond an idiotic, false narrative, and any decent history or political scholar can tell you just that. It’s the message of dictators and oligarchs really, upon close examination.
There may have been more difference in the past, but after watching the Dems do literally NOTHING to blunt MAGA’s return during the entire Biden administration, and almost helping them take back the country. Biden put the case in the hands of his AG, and he managed to find the most unmotivated REPUBLICAN of all time to do the job, who gave them a 2 year head start. The Dems deserve a significant amount of the blame.
The Dems obviously don’t want to make things to difficult for the Sociopathic Oligarchs. Look at the last shutdown. They let people lose their food assistance for a few weeks, but the minute it started to hit the airports, and the corporations couldn’t move their operatives around, the Dems folded within 48 hours, and surrendered with absolutely nothing in return.
Either the Dems are in cahoots, or they are cowardly and negligent. Either way, the result is the same, so who cares if there is a technical distinction?