It’s Happened: The United States of America Is No Longer a Democracy

It's not news. My personal date for the start of dictatorship in the United Stated is March 14, 2025: that's the first instance of Trump and his henchmen disobeying a court decision.

I think it was earlier, when the supreme Court ruled that the president could do what he wanted as long as it was part of his duties and THEY get to decide what is part of his duties.
Yes I did say duty. Grow up.
- Mans be getting his duties all over the constitution
- Imagine not being able to distinguish between the words duty and doody.
  The English Gang
IMO it's the day he took power the second time.
As he said plainly, "I'll be a dictator from day one". And then millions of Americans looked at his record, looked at all the crimes he'd been found guilty of, considered his promise, and voted for him anyway.
Real Darwin Award shit.
- What amazes me is that no one says he cheated to win like he did the first time. I would be very surprised if we couldn't find some trace years later that we didn't notice.
I would trace it back to September 11, 2001 at least. Specifically, the highly authoritarian response to that. There's a direct line from what the US government started doing then to what they're doing now.
- Yes indeed. Bin Laden can be proud, the terrorists won
That's only because you haven't been paying attention. The US has been on this path for decades.
1832 called and wants to remind you of Worcester v. Georgia. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Worcester-v-Georgia
My date is 2014 when a Princeton study concluded that the USA is not a democracy, but an oligarchy.

They decided to wait and see if Trump won, and if Homan then accepted bribes. It would be a much more airtight case. So the Biden people handed the investigation off to the Trump people, no doubt holding out the vain hope that the career people would persuade the political people that someone taking a bag of cash was something that ought to be investigated.

The fucking ineptitude of the Liberal elites never ceases to amaze me.

They're not inept, they're corrupt
- Little bit of column A, little bit of column B
The reality is that the democrats would much rather have a fascist dictatorship, than work in the interest of the people. The answer to "why?" has always, and will always be "money". They sold out the american people to fascists, because openly taking bribes is more important than the lives of minorities.
The democrats have held a trifecta of power twice in the past 15 years, and both times they have managed to do absolutely fuck all. Why? Because they weren't paid to actually do any of the things they promised their voters. They just used those talking points because people would vote for them.
- More specifically, because they need to maintain the capitalist status quo that they sincerely believe in (it works for them!), so they believe fascism to be the lesser evil. And they think they can control fascism, just like last time.
Paid To Lose

I mean, Princeton released a study over a decade that the U.S. was no longer a democracy but an oligarchy. I understand that the author means where descending into authoritarianism, but this didn't start with Trump, and we left democracy behind a long time ago.

The timing is worse than that. The study was only released in 2014, but it used data from 1981-2002, nearly 3 decades ago.
Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens | Perspectives on Politics | Cambridge Core - https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/abs/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B
- Shit, I assumed that data was relatively recent to the study's publication. It doesn't even cover Citizens United!

There was a time when we considered countries where women couldn't vote as a "democracy"

The goal posts shifted. As they should.

In the 21st century, I don't think we can call a system without rank choice voting a democracy. The US has never met modern standards of a Democracy

That eliminates pretty much the entire commonwealth except Australia, right?
- I think clinging on to inherited royalty is another big point against "democracy", no matter how vestigial.
In the 21st century, I don't think we can call a system without rank choice voting a democracy. The US has never met modern standards of a Democracy
While I very much hope the goal posts can be shifted that far, I think we haven't quite made it there yet
In the 21st century, I don’t think we can call a system without rank choice voting a democracy
I'm not sure you can call a country a democracy if parties are fully outlawed.

The US briefly experimented with democracy during Reconstruction but that was quickly defeated and it never happened again.

Correct. The US is now one of those shit hole countries Trump keeps talking about.

Maybe none of these 1st world nations aren't what they say they are. Maybe they are more like farms and they have mastered the psychology to convince people not only to be the workers but also the product. Wealthy people making their product pay for itself to supply their greedy habits.

It has been a uniparty for decades.

No, it hasn't. Both parties are not the same, and saying as such is simply pro republican propaganda
- Kamala "Do Not Come" Harris
  Joe "Nothing Will Fundamentally Change" Biden
  Nancy "Insider Trading is Fine, Actually" Pelosi
  They both serve capital first, all the rest is rhetoric to keep you frustrated and bewildered - unable to realize it. You'll spend the rest of eternity focusing on the outrage of the week, blind to the fact that the economics of the day dictate how they steer your thought and energy. When the chips are down, none of them worry about your poor non-capital-having ass.
- I mean, both parties are objectively crap. One of them is just more objectively crap.
- Being able to choose between slave owners or the only other option is totally a real choice...
  Both parties are not the same, but it is still a uniparty. Worst of all, it is one where the other side of the country has been conditioned for the same: choose what they believe to be the depravity and downfall of their way of life, or the only other option.
  This is why in other countries we have more than two parties, and why the ones that are Heritage Foundation funded influence operations want to change this.
- Yes and no. The two parties are different but they're both politically Right Wing. So cut from the same cloth but made into different outfits. They both believe at their core that a societal elite is best suited to rule but the Democrats believe in a bigger more inclusive elite than Republicans.
- Chuck Schumer allowed the big beautiful bil, which guts Medicare and social welfare, to pass without resistance; a resistance expected for a fucking opposition. That does not make the Democrats different, don't you think? In other countries, the opposition are actually, you know, being opposition. I am amazed that Americans are made docile to pick lesser evil that only throw breadcrumbs, instead of holding their politicians accountable more fiercely, as expected in a democracy and which other countries do. What happened to the Americans that ended the Gilded age? I'm sorry but the other person is right that Americans are being frustrated and bewildered without realising it.
- This statement is so american it makes my head hurt. Two parties is the reason you don't have a democracy, and the instant "if not then you are anti my team" response shows how dead your democracy really is. Without even the ability to have a third option you don't have a democracy, you have a red vs blue dictatorship.
Okay, but you need to admit that one party was Violently Fascist while the other party was merely Controlled Opposition.
I definitely prefer the empty vistage of democracy to the vulgar dismemberment of it. So you need to admit Democrats are better. And then you need to say you voted for them. And donated. And campaigned. And proselytized on their behalf.
Otherwise, I'm going to call you a Russian bot
- Democrats lived in denial that they could ride being "the lesser of two evils" forever but eventually as things got worse and worse people started becoming numb to it

Tip to writers.

Please don't use regional persian slang for bribe when trying to sound sophisticated.

This is only news for brain-damaged americans.

Land of the $2-trillion military budget, and the biggest prison population. and in the last two years, your elected policitians sent $30 billions from your taxes to a genocidal aparthied because they represent and serve the interests of another country

Never had been

Was it a democracy when women and people of color couldn't vote?

Was it a democracy when the two party system artificially limited your options in the voting booth?

I don't think it was ever a democracy.

Was it a democracy
Well, yes. Both the ancient forms of governance resembling what we call democracy and the Greek system that gives us the word Democracy typically excluded people to various degrees. Don't take that as a value judgement, I support anything that enfranchises more people, not less but I won't try to redefine words
- But the actual use of the word is a redefinition from the literal meaning, though. Democracy is power to the people, and states are the ones that keep adding conditions on who has the right to vote, starting with citizenship or criminal records - and deciding who gets to be a citizen as well as inventing new crimes that can lose you that right. This is a legal limitation that is decided by the state and it is always redefining the word. So no, modern and ancient states alike never really had a democracy, they just created a word and then decided that actually some people don't have that right, beyond the literal definition of that word. Power to the people^{not everyone is people}.
Nearly 1.5 million people can't vote in Florida because they've been to prison.
Guess how many votes Trump won Florida by in 2024?

archive link

Yeah the billionaires run that country

The US is a Republic, not a democracy. Here to tell you that. We also are not even in the top 10 most free and democratic countries.

what do you mean, why either or?
there is a bunch of democratic republics
The US is not a republic. It is an empire.
Here to tell you that.

...

We're a "republic" with an "electoral" college. We were never a democracy.

Edit: I don't want a direct democracy. I'm not a republican. I'd prefer communism. Fucking fascists.

The electoral college was designed to protect democracy in times when the people's vote was easily swayed due to misinformation. Gerrymandering compromised that. Now we have an orange figurehead dismantling our agencies. Why are people disagreeing?

We're a "republic" with an "electoral" college. We were never a democracy.
Nonsense. That’s the sort of disinformation I see the right trying to spread to defend fascism.
“Democracy” is simply a form of government where the rule or power (kratos) derives from the people (demos). A form where representatives are elected to make decisions is called “representative democracy.”
A “republic” is a form of government that isn’t a monarchy.
We have a representative democratic republic. Our system has its serious flaws, but that doesn’t make it not a democracy.
- We don't have a representative democracy.
  According to a Princeton study from like a decade ago no major public policy has reflected public opinion since the end of the civil rights era.
  If we were a representative democracy then the will of the demos would be reflected in the government and its decisions. But it's just not.
  In practice the US has been an oligarchy for at least half a century. I suspect it always has been just with brief interludes when people power breaks through like the civil rights era and the new deal.
- A true democracy isn't even desirable, as it is quite literally mob rule.
- That's their definitions. You're making us look bad. I don't care about republican talking points. You do.
- Can i pick who you vote for? Don't worry, I will give you two options.
- A republic is like a direct democracy, but instead, you elect officials to represent you. Wtf is this thread?
Ughh...
Didn't expect this old chestnut to show up on lemmy. Usually people here are better informed.
"Democracy" and "republic" are not mutually exclusive. The US is (well was) both.
Australia is a constitutional monarchy but we're still a democracy.

Never has been

Pretty sure technically it was never a democracy in the textbook definition meaning. It is/was a republic.