Voting in elections is like breathing. The next one is always the most important one of your lifetime.
The last important one was in 1980. The people celebrated their own destruction as they counted the days when they would be the millionaires inflicting themselves on society.
Fucking suckers.
Big capital owns both parties now, the literal 5ish spoilers between both chambers that the neoliberals hate more than their opposition party can't do a thing in a sea of hundreds of well bribed, oh I'm sorry "donated," sycophants. There's no escape under the current framework.
Worse, we've used our massive hard and soft geopolitical power since then to make the rest of the world as exploitative, sociopathic, and greedy as us, and we've been wildly successful at it.
Look up Jerry Falwell and his āMoral Majority.ā
Falwell was a TV preacher who decided he wanted to get into politics. He had a simple formula to take over the GOP. The Party depends on small local clubs to do all the little things like getting petitions signed and driving folks to the polls on election day. Those clubs pick local office holders like sheriffs and county clerks.
Falwell told his people to show up at those clubs whenever there was a decision to be voted on. If thereād been twenty folks there for the last vote, Falwellās āMoral Majorityā would show up with fifty. Pretty soon Jerry had a lot of local folks in his pocket. Those soon became Congressmembers and Governors.
AOC did it in one Congressional district.
If they owned the elections they wouldn't be trying so hard to stop people from voting.
democracy is when you let a bunch of unelected elders in robes dictate how society operates
They don't entirely, though. In fact, much of what the SCOTUS has struck down has been them saying Congress needs to do their job and write laws to do what they want the laws to do, versus having the SCOTUS legislate from the bench. Don't get me wrong, this SCOTUS is fucking awful, but there's some slight truth to some of what they've said on some of their rulings. For example, Roe v Wade could've easily become a national law, but Congress won't do it.
This only sounds reasonable until you think about it for 2 seconds. Do you really want the Senate and Congress to have to learn about and try to legislate the details of chemistry, medicine, finance, engineering, etc, rather than delegating figuring out the details of tasks like āmake the food safeā or āmake the water cleanā to scientists and other experts at agencies?
Roe v Wade would take a super majority and Dems had that for 4 months in the last 44+ years. Obama used that to get the ACA through. Not easy at all.
The Supreme Court only has the power it does because the legislature has been dysfunctional. Most of their terrible decisions are not based on the constitution, but rather their interpretation of laws written by Congress. Congress can easily override them by passing a law saying "No, that Is not what we meant".
An incompetent Supreme Court would fit your argument.
But what about a malicious court doing destructive things a paralyzed congress could not possibly fix?
Your thinking of a plutocracy or a senate.
"Separation of powers" is an incredibly nonsensical concept. If we live in a democracy then the democratically elected legislature should have total power. The idea that unelected judicial branch can dictate policy is indeed anti-democratic, the judicial branch should be wholly subervient to the legislature. The same is true of the executive branch, the executive branch also should be wholly subservient to the legislature. Giving a single guy control over the whole freaking military and making the branch roughly independent is also entirely nonsensical. It has happened historically in the past in several countries that the executive just tells the military to attack the legislature and the country collapses into a dictatorship. This literally almost happened in South Korea literally today, although the president backed down at last moment. Any country with separation of powers is already borderline a totalitarian dictatorship, since it just takes a single crazy executive to decide to pack the courts and disband the legislature solely for their own personal gain and the whole thing falls apart.
Lol remember signing our supreme court justice approvals. Fucking silly us.
I'm just glad Obama rolled over and allowed Mitch McConnell to steal a seat. Because the decorum that preserved really helped this country.
"When they go low, we go high." is a saying I'll remember for ever and teach others...
As an ominous warning to never, ever, EVER be an Honest Man in a lying contest.
Obama was just like Joe by his second term, he was a piece of shit that did next to nothing. Fuck the democrats (after thoroughly fucking the conservatives, of course). We deserve better than these shitty fucking parties that do nothing for the people.
It's funny (funny in the sense that I have an uncomfortable chance of not fucking surviving the next four years) that so many self-proclaimed leftists have a strategy that boils down to "Let the fascists win and then complain about it".
Including a bunch here who have also seemingly deleted months worth of their comments as cover.
Don't worry, they'll have fresh accounts with which to repeat the same points as before, just with an added dash of "I don't believe anyone ever ACTUALLY held those opinions you're criticizing (that I deleted on my previous account)"
Funny that so many centrists have a strategy that boils down down to, "ignore leftists and then complain when they don't vote for us."
Sorry, here I thought self-proclaimed leftists might have some interest in preventing fascism, but as many leftists on here have repeatedly and joyfully assured me, they don't give a single solitary fuck about the oppressed or the working class if Their Guy(tm) isn't the one preventing fascism. Not unlike the Thalmann bootlicking that goes on on some corners about Lemmy about how right he was to hand the country over to Hitler, rather than risk cooperating with the dreaded SHITLIBS.
Red fascists have nothing to distinguish them but a coat of paint.
EDIT: They go on for a half-a-dozen comments or so denying that they're saying that leftists didn't turn out because they weren't enthused, and then go right back around and admit that leftists didn't turn out against fascism because they weren't enthused, but that's just life and we should deal with it.
Apparently, expecting antifascism out of leftists is above pjwestin's standards for us.
Every "I won't vote for Kamela because she's almost as bad as Trump on Palestine", signed our death warrant.
honestly I think Joe Biden withdrawing after the primaries is the biggest nail in the coffin. The primary elections are worth like 10 billion in free media coverage. The second biggest is probably Kamala campaigning with Liz Cheney who has like 15% approval and dropped her poll numbers every time. Distant 3rd is maybe Gaza.
And this is why repubs want to shut down the Dept. of Education. We already stopped teaching Civics/Government in schools a long time ago, which has led us to this current level of ignorance about how our government works and what powers the president does and doesn't have. For the last year(s) I've seen comments demanding Biden do this or that thing he has no authority to do (even thinking he can order other countries' leaders to do what he wants!). They think it means he just doesn't want those things to happen.
They think POTUS is supposed to be a king who just has to decree whatever he wants and it happens, no matter what the other 2 equal branches of government do. They want a king, dammit! So they voted for a king. They elected Trump who will throw out the Constitution and be a king for them. Enjoy having a king, suckers.
There does seem to be a disparity between what biden can do and trump can do though doesnt there.
When government is functioning as it was designed, the checks and balances work, and a POTUS who does not respect the law would be checked, impeached, and/or removed. But when an entire party that is in power not only refuses to act as a check, but willingly does his bidding, then the law-breaking POTUS is effectively a king.
We have examples in the past, like Nixon, who was forced to resign under threat of impeachment by his own party. We have an example today, of the president of South Korea, cancelling his declaration of marital law under pressure from both the opposition and his own party.
The Constitution is an agreement, governing with the consent of the governed. Once the majority of those in power refuse to abide by the Constitution and rule of law, then it is no longer worth the paper it's written on and we no longer have a functioning democratic republic. That is where we are.
If you listen and believe the incoherent ramblings and lies of one particularly large, wrinkly, and orange anal sphincter and his allied gang of extortionists and sexual predators, sure.
Voters allowed trump to stack it?!
Obama didn't fight for his pick because the party wanted to use it to motivate voters to vote for Hillary, which didn't work.
McTurtle refused to vote to confirm, and legally all that needs to happen is the Senate has an opportunity to vote to confirm. Obama had a year to say:
"I take no vote to mean no objections, Merrick Garland is on the SC"
Except Garland probably wouldn't be that much different than Trump's picks.
Stop blaming the voters for stupid shit the only option we have to vote for keeps doing.
The party refused to pressure Breyer & RBG to step down. Obama refused to play hardball with Garland.
Biden negotiated with himself and cut debt forgiveness to 10K. Then the SC strikes it down
, and he throws his hands up and walks away. I'm old enough to remember when Trump's obviously unconstitutional muslim ban got banned and he rewrote it and tried again until it stuck. It didn't fully take until the third try. Then he expanded it twice.[Edit: I looked it up and he did give it another go, my b]
Biden didn't give up on debt forgiveness, he pushed 20 different forgiveness schemes instead of trying to get the original 1 scheme reapproved
Yep
It's because the same billionaires/corporations donate to both parties.
If a moderate wins, the most they'll do is "try" they were paid too much money to actually succeed, so they do the bare minimum till people stop complaining they didn't do anything.
And the donors know that means a republican will likely win the next election, which is their preference anyways.
The moderate wing of the party only exists to make sure the wealthy never lose and we never really win.
and legally all that needs to happen is the Senate has an opportunity to vote to confirm. Obama had a year to say:
"I take no vote to mean no objections, Merrick Garland is on the SC"
From what I know (not much) this is a creative take on it. The Senate needs to confirm. If they don't confirm then the judge is not placed. I welcome expert legal scholars to weigh in but afaik what you said is wrong.
Obama could have temporarily placed the judge but that would have only lasted until the end of his term.
I'm sorry, who allowed Trump to pack the court? The Debt Collective?
The republicans I suppose. If I recall correctly they were against Obama appointing a judge before the end of his term for some reason while very supportive of Trump appointing judges before his term ended
Every single non-voter in the country willingly allowed the Republicans to fuck everyone over.
Edit: Going back decades, obviously. The latest election has nothing to do with the current SCOTUS. And sure, it's not the American non-voters' fault they're brain dead consumers with no will of their own. It's all very sad, blah blah blah.
One way or another, any government which remains in power is a representative government. If your city government is a crooked machine, then it is because you and your neighbors prefer it that way - prefer it to the effort of running your own affairs.
Hitler's government was a popular government; the vast majority of Germans preferred the rule of gangsters to the effort of thinking and doing for themselves. They abdicated their franchise.
āRobert A. Heinlein, Take Back Your Government
The 2016 Hilary protest non voters.
Leaving out the part where Biden refused to even consider stacking the court and instead ordered a commission on Supreme Court reform. Then, after three years of silence, with only three months to go before the election, they came out with...term limits and a binding ethics code. Two milquetoast reforms they didn't even run on.
When democrats lose: "We could've had a utopia if you had simply voted for us!"
When democrats win: crickets
When democrats lose: āWe couldāve had a utopia if you had simply voted for us!ā
"We could have averted fascism" is "utopia" now?
Funny, but considering that you repeatedly insisted that you didn't give a fuck how many Americans and Palestinians have to die to satisfy your urge for political purity in the run-up to the election, unsurprising.
When democrats win:
crickets"We didn't win enough so I'm afraid our hands are tied."Funny thing is they never win enough. Even when they win a majority, magically enough members switch sides to cancel any possibility of progress. It's like a rigged carnival game, but you think that if we simply adjusted our aim we could certainly get the ball in the hole. It's crafted to look like you have a chance when you really don't.
I always took crickets coming out of the political arena to be a positive. I want my politicians to shut the fuck up and govern, thank you very much.
I wish they would govern, but all they do is the bidding of lobbyists and then loudly proclaim that they are defending democracy or freedom or whatever.
That makes no sense. Government changes your life, so why keep it secret?
The most infuriating thing about that whole plot arc was that the people bringing the case to the Supreme Court had absolutely no standing to even file a complaint, and Bidenās actions were actually, through any logical reading of the law, completely within his authority, but they were like ālol noā
and Biden, a consummate Democrat, just was like āwell thatās all we can do, corpo has spoken.ā
I am still convinced Harris lost in most states because people were looking for Bidenās name on the ballot and couldnāt find Kamala so they just circled Trump.
I am still convinced Harris lost in most states because people were looking for Bidenās name on the ballot and couldnāt find Kamala so they just circled Trump.
You give people way too much credit. They enthusiastically voted for Trump, knowing what he is.
Question for the Americans. The Supreme Court has ruled that presidents enjoy automatic immunity for anything they do as part of their official duties (e.g., arrest or kill people). Can he use this to forgive student loans? Like couldn't he just say "I almost fell down the stairs exiting Air Force One yesterday, and the only way I could save myself was by violently flailing my arms in search of the railing while also forgiving student loans"?
Unfortunately, no. Immunity means that Biden could, theoretically, personally murder every judge who stopped student loan forgiveness, but not that he could give student loan forgiveness the force of law.
If you'll notice, this is extremely useful for crooked cunts like Trump, and borderline useless for every other variety of politician, including imaginationless narrowed-sighted milquetoast moderates like Biden.
No, all the supreme court said was: "You can't do anything illegal, but if you do, you won't get in trouble for it."
So the president still have to find those "yes-men" in the government to do the deed.
He can say: "All student loans are now void. BURN ALL THE RECORDS"
The people that run those departments that administers the student loans would be like: "Um... so do we burn these records or what?" and if even one copy of those records survive, its pointless.
Same with trying to kill the supreme court, doesn't matter. I doubt anyone is obeying those orders. Joe can have a meeting with the justices and then shoot them himself, and he might ne immume. But is that gonna matter? Jan 20 comes and republicans pack the court with even more Magats.
Trying to kill trump doesnt work, he got like so many bodyguards both private and SS, and also if he dies, vance would just take over, or mike johnson, or pres pro tem of senate, like the line of succession is all republicans.
Its over.
Contrary to what other people will tell you, yes he could. For example, he could simply order all loan records destroyed and all loan enforcement stopped. He doesn't even need that Court ruling to do that, the Executive branch opts to not enforce laws all the time. Simply stop the government from doing anything about student loans. In fact, he (his administration) has done some of this--see the note on this page:
On March 9, 2022, the U.S. Department of Education asked the U.S. Department of Justice to request a pause of any active bankruptcy case if the borrower wishes.
Right now, student loans are a huge problem in the US because (unlike other debts) you cannot (easily) get out of student loans through bankruptcy and young people are getting saddled with monstrous amounts of debt that they aren't entirely consenting to, so rather than fix that in any way the "fix" was to simply force students to repay the loans regardless.
At the same time: no, he could not.
The fact of the matter is the case would eventually end up before the Supreme Court who would simply find against Biden. Nothing Biden does would be considered legal, everything Trump does would be considered legal. Literally the only way out of this is to remove the Justices who have no regard for the law.
This immunity ruling is a loaded gun that the Supreme Court dropped on the desk of the President. If the Biden does anything with it, the Supreme Court is going to say "no that's illegal, you can't do that!" Using this immunity ruling to remove them would be a good option, but Biden has no intent of ever doing that and so the loaded gun is still sitting on the desk for when Trump takes office. Whenever Trump does anything, the Supreme Court is going to simply say "immunity".
AI means the president is immune. Not his orders and actions. The courts can sometimes stop those.
Who is "y'all"? People are blaming anti-debt activists for trump? Another new low for the libs.
Hope this helps: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_you
The for profit media and captured education system has pitted non wealthy Americans against each other irreparably by design.
As they rage over how to address the social issue symptoms of our crony market capitalist economy, the one truly unapproachable topic is remaking our economy to reward honest labor over increasingly abstract (credit default swaps, stock shorts, etc) speculative, insider information laden GAMBLING, or rebuilding a safetynet for our fellow neighbors that struggle, and that necrotic economy we the people have been largely deluded into not wanting to address causes or exacerbates all the problems we do get a vote on to provide the illusion of choice.
Example: abortion is usually an economic decision, and rightly so. If the owner's greed hadn't required 2 full time incomes to run most households, and the minimum wage were a living wage, there would be less abortion and birth rates would go up, no threats or bans required. Worker productivity skyrocketed for decades, but that wasn't enough, everyone get into the factories and cubicles and make the masters moooooaaaaaaar!!!!
To thunderous applause as the tens of millions of deluded economic victims are told GDP is life, and life is GDP, and if they're struggling, it's the powerless homeless people outside dying faults, lowering property values that stopped them from getting a raise. Bullshit.
The United States isn't a society, it is a death cult of greed/avarice enablers, and it's easy to see if you recognize the deification of our supposed "free market" they shove down your throats as the self-serving lie that it is.
Freedom without responsibility is a destructive force. The owners feel no responsibility towards the nations they exploit, including ours.
Clearly the reason my life sucks is because of the people in a lower station than me that have and control nothing.
Couldn't possibly be the people in a higher station than me that have and control everything.
Nope. Damn homeless gay Mexican transgender immigrants. Dey derkerder.
Lol oh, I allowed it? I'm so sorry, you're highnesses... But I only get one fucking vote every election. Fuck off now, thanks.
Expand the court then? Well, too late now since Dems are losing every branch of government.
"No no you don't understand. The Dems just need to want it more! They just need to fight for it more! Something something bully pulpit! Something sometime party whip!"
Because indebted students run the Democratic Party, gotcha
And Inbred stupids run the Republican Party, gotcha
