Is there any way out of the US political spiral?
Is there any way out of the US political spiral?
I'm not in the US, but it seems to me that the Republicans keep breaking norms and procedures, including politicising impeachment and ignoring illegal, immoral and plain bad conduct.
They also seem to be fine with not applying the same standard across the isle.
On the other hand, either Democrats follow new precedent, with even more devolving, or they keep the old decorum and get their asses kicked by Republican foul play.
What ways out of this spiral are there?
There is more discussion that might be useful here: https://ponder.cat/post/1453581
As a non-American, it's always looked to me like the Republicans manage to get their shit done whether they're in charge or not and the Democrats are just there to assure everyone they have a choice in voting and not much else.
The whole thing to me looks like a game of good cop / bad cop. Bad cop comes along beats the shit out you, and then good cop comes along to give you a cup of weak shit coffee as a consolation for your black eye and says something unconvincing about being unhappy with bad cop's behaviour, before letting bad cop back in to beat the shit out of you some more.
And for every cycle of that, bad cop achieves his goals while good cop just acts as a glorified tea lady that tries to make sure you don't have any hard feelings about bad cop.
You are correct in your noticing Democrats have been the party of decorum - and that's the penultimate refuge of the incompetent before violence. So, now we've established that the two-ply paper-thin veneer of legitimacy has unraveled, what should we do?
There are ways out of this. None of them are easy.
Vote with your wallet, vote in primaries. Go to community board meetings. Speak up, even if you're afraid of what anyone might think. More people will respect you for trying than you'd think, but don't waste the opportunity on something trivial.
Don't do business with anyone with destructive politics to the point where it causes you personal/professional inconvenience and costs your money. Support local communities. Talk to the guy on the street corner you always see but never approached. Maybe they can tell you something. Talk to the guy that makes your sandwiches at the store, your bartender, your barista, your cleaning lady, your laundromat people. Hell talk to your drug dealer/street pharmacist. Talk to your coworkers and don't be scared. If they snitch then you will know indicators better for next time, and trust me - you will survive the mistake. Maybe it's BS, maybe you'll realize there's an angle to help yourself and everyone else. Never do anything unless it helps more people than yourself, and doesn't have an obvious negative externality that you can account for.
Go to rallies, go to meetings. Show support in public for people you believe in, someone standing up next to you when you stick your neck out counts for more than you can possibly understand. Put yourself on the front line facing armed police. Make the point that you won't break, and that they can't scare you. Remain nonviolent until you have no other option, but be prepared when they invent reasons to hurt you withing reason - and remember that they may have thought they never had a choice (even if they did).
This is going to get ugly.
The next time someone annoys or inconveniences you, or says something provocative, ask yourself why, and ask yourself what personal hell they are living in made them do that?
If this sounds a lot like religious nonsense, that's exactly what it is. That stuff was (arguably flawed and wantonly misinterpreted) attempts to give people a map going forwards. We've been putting in an abysmal effort to do better for not only ourselves, but everyone else, and now everyone's hurting. Some people you can't help, they're so stuck into their monomaniacal vision of reality that they don't care who they're hurting, even if it's ultimately themselves through consequence or some other metaphysical mechanism whether you believe in it or not.
Find a community, build a community. Be a leader and set a better example for everyone around you.
It may already be too late but your actions going forwards from here will determine what survives, and whether THAT is worth saving.
And remember - it's not just humans. There are many other living beings on this planet that don't have the technological capacity, legal status or physical ability to make themselves heard, and our status demands at very least the acknowledgement of some form of responsible stewardship.
Good Luck.
To all of us.
Emigration or civil war, I'd wager. My home country will be a fascist state during my lifetime, as I've been saying for about three to four years.
The two parties tango. The Republicans wouldn’t be getting away with it if the Democrats weren’t beholden to the same moneyed interests.
Did Obama prosecute any of the Bush Jr officials guilty of torture and guilty of invading Iraq over a lie? Worse Obama committed more war crimes.
I have no idea, but I think something will have to happen that affects the majority of Americans. Another sustained Depression for example. Republicans will have to crash and burn the country down before their voters will turn on them. They have to experience pain for themselves, for they have no empathy for others. They say they do, but they cannot. They say they are Christian, but turn their back on what they say his teachings are. I'm fed up and scared at the same time. I hit retirement age in less than 10 years. Social security won't be there for me. I did a terrible job of saving, I spent most of my paychecks on frivolous things like bills, rent, and food. I make good money now, but it's not enough. I know I'm yelling into the void, but it feels good to say it.
Need to reorganize liberal politics from the ground up. Liberals need to justify their existence and the value of their policies at the city and state level and use that to build a national brand. Democrats in federal government seem to be totally unwilling to push their agenda in deference to political norms, but in my state they get quite a lot done when they're in power
Right now, not much can done, but ideas will change over time as the people holding the old ideas eventually die from age.
In my opinion, the current shitshow is actually a sign of old ideas dying. It'll take time, but I don't believe the Project 2025 will be successful. It's happening brutally right now, but it will fail, because it's being done with only very slim support from the population.
We're in 'if you can't beat them, join them' mode.
Invest every dollar you can spare, because that's the only way to win in any of this. Both ruling parties care far more about your stock portfolio succeeding than they do about you.
Join your local advocacy organizations, volunteer and make the difference in your community/local area. It'll have more impact for you than you can ever do via federal level.
The only way I see out of it is not a way I like or am willing to talk about online. Let’s just say the second amendment is making more and more sense every day.
Yep... war or a plane
The Republicans are much better about using topics they don't care as much about to generate support so they can achieve the ones they do.
The Democrats tend to want to die on every hill, which is ultimately a losing strategy.
Something that might be useful is a general strike (see https://sh.itjust.works/post/9745322 and https://sh.itjust.works/post/31602246 also). It would be nice for more people to be unionized in preparation for that. I suspect that it would be better to start unionizing for jobs that more people have (like Personal Care Aides or people working in a retail store or fast food restaurant), since after having a union contract is more normalized it'd probably be easier for people like medical doctors or pilots or lawyers to have a union contract.
I'm personally interested in electoral reform (see !rcv@ponder.cat and !fairvote@lemmy.ca also), such that I wouldn't have to worry as much about coordinating with other people before I vote. However, it's guaranteed that someone will always be dissatisfied with the results of an election that isn't unanimous, so that might not be a complete solution. A more general solution might be to handle more things locally with voluntary organizations. Another option could be to generally devolve power to local institutions (like to a state government or municipality) or to create more independent institutions that are directly accountable to the government of the United States but can act autonomously (like the Federal Reserve System) so that less is dependent on the Congress or the President, and then to reduce the authority of more powerful institutions. If some states withdrew or were expelled from the United States of America that might help (since the power of an expelled state and a post-expulsion United States of America would naturally be more local, and the power of each would also affect less territory).
I’m still optimistic. While the severity of the current shitshow is unprecedented, the reality is we tend to bounce left and right. One side gets in power and does (or doesn’t) shit, until people get pissed off and elect the other side.
I am more worried about the death of media and rise of streaming. Just like the rise of TV changed who could be elected and how, new media is also changing that. So far new media helps elect people with dark skills, people farther from anyone you’d want governing. It’s not pretty, it’s not good, and it’s getting worse before it gets better. Truth doesn’t matter, echo chambers matter, outrage matters.
Do you hate Russia and China? How about Iran, North Korean, Cuba and Venezuela? If yes, then politics funding warmongering are certain to prevail. Past US military budgets + interest on those deficits are sufficient to account for all US debt. Trusting the government and media telling you who to hate, keeps them elected. Netanyahu telling you Iran is the US's enemy, or Iraq has WMDs, is why you hate them and support war.
The DNC can't save you if they love Netanyahu just as much as the GOP candidate, because the GOP won't try to balance pandering to anti-genociders. Trump has no qualms in Kent State-ing university anti-genocide protesters. He is better for Netanyahu, and then the Zionist single issue lobby that determines election results.
Your tolerance for war is your tolerance for politicians that will give you war. Progressives for war do not get much progressive stuff done. Though oligarchist bribery money rains when they are close to a majority to get some small stuff done.
UBI is path out of the spiral. UBI redistribute power not wealth, and prosperity grows significantly to the benefit of everyone including the rich. War becomes unpopular because we could all just have more cash instead. Nationalist "war preparation"/tariffs unpopular because we could have cheaper stuff instead.
Grass-roots local freaking organization. People keep waiting for someone to save them not realizing: they're someone. Get involved with whatever local org is trying to improve people's lives. Address the problems that the right wing is lying about solving. Support whatever local candidate aligns with that view or hell become that candidate. Then get more people on board. We all love Bernie right? Well that's what Bernie has been preaching for decades. And the results for his state have been great.
The extreme right flourishes because the establishment (left and right) has for decades ignored real people's issues. You hears those interviews with Trump voters? They're not talking about wanting to reinstate the Third Reich, they're complaining about their real life hardships being ignored by politicians. And yeah Trump is obviously lying but desperate people will believe a lie if no one else is providing a better alternative.
I see basically three ways out:
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Democrats/someones sane win overwhelming majority for long enough to harden procedures, cement effective enforcement, and subversion proof the whole system, while not succumbing to their own corruption. Seems incredibly unlikely.
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Autocracy and/or persecution of political rivals, where dissenters "fall out windows" a lot or the legislative body is replaced, until stability reforms and new norms can be reintroduced. Seems most likely currently, and has several contemporary examples.
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Revolt, public and/or military, throwing out all the politicians and imposing exile or lynching of the offending politicians. Seems improbable, and especially to unite enough to throw out all the bad behaviour. Also will lead to a junta, civil strife and/or provisional government which come with their own slew of issues and corruption.
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The Republicans grow a sense of decorum to protect the less privileged party. I can't imagine this happening without basically a GOP-internal pogrom under a strongman, but Republican conservatism pulls a strongman in the opposite direction. Unless perhaps they're some kind of upstanding teocrat perhaps?
This is all wild and slightly saddening speculation, please feel free to suggest other paths!
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At this point? Probably not. Not if history is any indication. We've blown right past all the checkpoints that would have prevented this snowball effect. Our legislative processes are almost too irreparably damaged for a healthy democracy to exist. We've removed too many regulations regarding money in our politics and not placed enough regulations on the focus of power on individuals and entities within our government.
We're probably going to go through a really dark period where the quality of life is going to decline, rights will be stripped, and a lot of vulnerable people are going to die and then, hopefully, things will get bad enough that a revolution happens. It won't be like WW2 where more powerful forces come to our rescue. We'll have to do it ourselves. And I don't really have that much faith in our populace doing that. Again, it will take a really significant decline in quality of life for damn near everyone before that's even possible. It looks like that's where we're headed though.
Yes. All modern human civilization will collapse with the coming climate change.
I really don't know. Me personally, I'm pursuing citizenship in an EU country so I can at least have an exit strategy other than "drive to Canada and hope they let me in". Other than that, I'm active in my union and I talk with my neighbors. I walk my dog and am visibly a Nice Normal Person who happens to be Queer.
It's scary being queer here, so I might tone that down a bit as I get more scared. Which is what They want, but, hey, I'm scared.
The US will have a "Revolution of Dignity" moment similar to Ukraine.
If pro-constitution side wins, trump (and leading maga leaders) will flee to russia.
But if the maga wins, the US will remain a fascist nation for decades.
The democrats follow newprecedent to a point but not such that it just breaks the law. Like they would not try to define a sentence in the constitution to invalidate the whole paragraph thus making a paragraph that was written by the founding fathers to nullify itself thus calling the founding fathers brain dead dumb fucks. That being said they did sign off on the patriot act and have not acted to nullify citizens united. I live in the US so I sure as fuck hope we can but its been going on since the 80's with increasing acceleration. One of my biggest concerns is the most recent coming of age generation has no experience with somewhat sane political discourse.
3 is the only thing that'll work, but things are going to get much worse before it'll happen. The system is fundamentally and irreparably broken and needs to be thrown out.
Nope, i mean other than direct action.
Just wait it out for a few more years and things will settle down. This isn't anything new... the US has gone through a very similar period of political upheaval and realigning of parties every two or three generations since it was founded. This one isn't even the worst we've had.
Edit: Sorry, I didn't realize you all are part of the problem.