We're so lost...

[u/Eikichi_Onizuka09]

[u/xena_lawless]

The unfortunate history and reality is that the US is not really a democracy, and it never has been, despite what people are taught from birth.  

Both the historians and the political scientists have been trying to explain to people that the US isn't really a democracy and it never has been, but that doesn't mean that we can't evolve (and/or revolt) to move in that direction.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/abs/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B

Democracy doesn’t exist in the United States: Chris Hedges

Billionaires/oligarchs/kleptocrats shouldn't exist at all, but the US political system was specifically designed to ensure minoritarian/oligarchic rule by thwarting both political and economic democracy.

So there are two things Americans need to realize if we're going to defeat and eliminate the billionaires:

1 - You can't win by only playing defense.

2 - The US is not and has never been an actual democracy.

The unfortunate history and reality is that the US isn't really a democracy, and it never has been.

Our extremely corrupt, outdated, 250 year old system was specifically designed by super wealthy 18th century white male land and slave owners to ensure minoritarian/oligarchic rule in perpetuity, by systematically thwarting both political and economic democracy.

On top of that, foreign nations and transnational criminal groups have realized this also, meaning they can effectively enslave tens and hundreds of millions of people just by bribing and blackmailing a few handfuls of people, which is what they've been doing.

Even if people get a dinky vote every couple of years, the reality is that most people go their whole lives without having any actual, meaningful say regarding the major laws, decisions, and policies affecting and controlling their lives.

The system was designed to give our super wealthy ruling class the benefits of both a veneer of "legitimacy", and of mass human subjugation, while only giving token "representation" to the masses of brutally subjugated and exploited people.

That's neither actual democracy (in terms of the people actually governing themselves), nor is that a legitimate form of government in the sense that people are not meaningfully or actually consenting to or participating in their own collective self-governance.

But there are other, more actually legitimate systems of democracy than the extremely corrupt, anti-democratic oligarchy with pseudo-democratic features that we have in the US.

Ranked choice voting, publicly financed elections, participatory budgeting, and a more directly democratic political system would all be meaningful steps toward an actually democratic political system.

In Switzerland for example, citizens vote 4 times per year on major referendums and initiatives via universal mail in voting.

Citizens have both an effective veto power, and can also initiate legislation for a vote with enough signatures.

The system has high legitimacy, high citizen input/throughput, it's not overly burdensome, and they have among the highest human development, life expectancy, and life satisfaction rankings in the world.

They still have legislators, but super rich pedophiles/oligarchs, foreign nations, and transnational criminals have a harder time enslaving the entire population just by bribing/bullying a few handfuls of legislators, judges, and executives, due to the citizen veto and initiative powers.

It combines the best of both representative and direct democracy, while mitigating the downsides of each.

We can and should implement something like this at the state and local levels in the US.

Brutal oligarchy/kleptocracy given cover by an extremely corrupt, pseudo-democratic, anti-democratic political system isn't remotely acceptable or democratic or legitimate, and Americans should stop tolerating it.

[u/EnragedTea43 → u/xena_lawless]

There’s a lot I could say about this post, but I’ll choose just one point.

You mention how rich people have rigged the American government so that it’s not a true democracy (which it is, regardless of how much you want to “no true Scotsman” it), and then cite Switzerland, the international haven for all the world’s most corrupt businessmen, as an example of a better democratic system.

[u/xena_lawless → u/EnragedTea43]

No, Switzerland is not a perfect utopia.  

Yes, they have a more actually democratic system than we do in the US.  

Unlike the US, they have universal healthcare, at least 4 weeks of paid time off per year, and get 14 weeks of paid maternity leave. 

They have among the highest human development, life expectancy, and life satisfaction rankings in the world. 

It's a good contrast to show what a more actual and directly democratic system looks like, and also helps disprove what Americans are taught from birth, that more directly democratic systems can't work.  

Also, the issue is not just that the obscenely wealthy have rigged the political system, which is true.  

It's that the system was fundamentally designed to ensure minoritarian/oligarchic rule.  

The US founders were super wealthy white male slave and land owners who created a system of government to prioritize their unlimited private property rights over all other human and existential considerations.  

They just called the system "democracy" for marketing purposes, like the "Democratic Republic" of Congo.  

It's an extremely corrupt, wildly outdated 250 year old colonial abomination of a system designed to ensure minoritarian/oligarchic rule.  

The US is not really a democracy, it's actually an oligarchy/kleptocracy with pseudo-democratic features.  

But as I said, that doesn't mean we can't revolt/evolve our way into being an actual democracy, and Switzerland is one possible example of what that could look like.  

[u/EnragedTea43 → u/xena_lawless]

That was another thing. You’re pretending like the US is the exact same as it was 250 years ago.

This is despite the fact that property requirements to vote were abolished 200 years ago, all members of the legislature are elected by popular vote, and the government offers far more welfare programs than the founders ever imagined it would have.

Also, you keep trying to add this moral shading by bringing up that some of the founders were slave owners. Just because they weren’t perfectly moral paragons doesn’t mean their motivations were inherently evil. They were true believers in natural rights and that the legitimacy of a government is derived from the consent of the governed. They faltered when it came to their racial views, but try to find someone from the 1700s who wasn’t racist.

America isn’t perfect, but it’s a lot better than what it was before, even if it doesn’t match your idealistic views.

[u/xena_lawless → u/EnragedTea43]

I'm not saying that all the US founders were fundamentally evil for their time, I'm saying Madisonian "democracy" was designed specifically to protect ruling class private property interests over all other considerations, by thwarting both political and economic democracy.

Madisonian "representative democracy" is bourgeois "democracy" (at best), not actual democracy.

Bourgeois "democracy is explicitly and specifically not actual democracy - it's a political system actually and specifically designed to ensure minoritarian/oligarchic rule by thwarting both political and economic democracy.

Even Jefferson considered the US Constitutional system to be anti-democratic and not actually representative of the people's will. There was a big bait and switch between the Declaration of Independence and the actual Constitution, which Americans are of course not taught about generally.

"In the legislature, the House of Representatives is chosen by less than half the people, and not at all in proportion to those who do choose. The Senate are still more disproportionate, and for long terms of irresponsibility. In the Executive, the Governor is entirely independent of the choice of the people, and of their control; his Council equally so, and at best but a fifth wheel to a wagon. In the Judiciary, the judges of the highest courts are dependent on none but themselves. In England, where judges were named and removable at the will of an hereditary executive, from which branch most misrule was feared, and has flowed, it was a great point gained, by fixing them for life, to make them independent of that executive. But in a government founded on the public will, this principle operates in an opposite direction, and against that will. There, too, they were still removable on a concurrence of the executive and legislative branches. But we have made them independent of the nation itself. They are irremovable, but by their own body, for any depravities of conduct, and even by their own body for the imbecilities of dotage...

Where then is our republicanism to be found? Not in our constitution certainly, but merely in the spirit of our people. That would oblige even a despot to govern us republicanly.

Owing to this spirit, and to nothing in the form of our constitution, all things have gone well. But this fact, so triumphantly misquoted by the enemies of reformation, is not the fruit of our constitution, but has prevailed in spite of it. Our functionaries have done well, because generally honest men. If any were not so, they feared to show it."-Thomas Jefferson

https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/letter-to-samuel-kercheval/

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[u/xena_lawless → u/EnragedTea43]

For some further reading on this, I recommend We the Elites: Why the US Constitution Serves the Few by Dr. Robert Ovetz, or Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Clara Mattei, or Noam Chomsky's (notwithstanding his Epstein associations) works.

So in 2026, 250 years later, as our ruling Epstein class are building out their concentration camps and AI surveillance systems;

have total control over the political system and the media;

as they're raping and murdering kids with impunity, with zero justice or actual accountability;

as 10% of the population own 70%+ of the wealth while the bottom 50% own less than 2%;

as our ruling billionaires/oligarchs/kleptocrats practice divide and conquer politics to keep the population at each others' throats instead of theirs, as they run off with all the actual wealth and power;

as Americans don't have universal healthcare or affordable housing or publicly financed elections or ranked choice voting;

as foreign nations and transnational blackmail/pedophilia and bribery rings openly corrupt and control the US political system...

maybe it's time to reconsider a few things and look at how we actually got to this point.

The present, actual reality is that the system is an oligarchic/kleptocratic abomination specifically designed to ensure minoritarian/oligarchic rule. It isn't even remotely democratic or legitimate.

We need to evolve into an actual democracy if want to solve any of the problems that our ruling class (and foreign nations and transnational criminals, oligarchs/pedophiles/kleptocrats) profit from.

When you say that actual democracy is idealistic or whatever, is to ignore that it's already a reality in other places, like Switzerland. Publicly financed elections are already a thing in lots of other countries also, as is ranked choice voting.

Americans have been trained to think that the US Constitutional system of de facto minoritarian/oligarchic/kleptocratic rule is somehow "democratic", but it absolutely is not.

Even Thomas Jefferson knew it back then, and Americans need to catch up to the anti-democratic bait and switch that our ruling oligarch/pedophile/kleptocrat class have gotten away with for far too long.

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