• rowrowrowyourboat@sh.itjust.works
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    3 days ago

    I think the founding fathers couldn’t fathom how cowardly elected officials would be faced with such a corrupt president.

    Trump should have been found guilty the two times he was impeached during his first term.

    And the founding fathers also probably couldn’t fathom how stupid the American people would be to vote twice for the same corrupt man who was impeached twice!!!

    Like shit… I don’t think anyone in the world believed it when Trump won again. Like I still can’t believe Americans voted for him again…

    • PhilipTheBucket@quokk.au
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      3 days ago

      Part of what they talked about was how essential it was to have good education, good communication, and a vigorous free press. Just having people vote doesn’t do shit. Even back then, they understood that. The people have to know what they’re doing. Things like Trump and the poorly educated who vote for him in large numbers were a known failure mode of democratic systems, even back then. They actually tried to design in features to make sure that only “educated” “responsible” people could vote as a check against it, although, that had its own problems.

      They also were somewhat terrified of political parties and the opportunities for corruption and self-interest they created. A lot of the sadness of the system they set up is that it tended to collapse into a binary system with each “team” operated by a party, because good modern voting technology was something they were not yet aware of. Sadly. Read George Washington’s writing on political parties sometime, it seems incredibly prescient if you look at the rot of the late 20th century that set the stage for Trump.

      • arrow74@lemmy.zip
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        3 days ago

        I wouldn’t call them features designed to have “educated” or “responsible” or responsible people vote.

        It was a system designed to allow male land owners to have all the say. To keep the wealthy in charge. In many states it was limited to wealthy white land owners.

        • PhilipTheBucket@quokk.au
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          3 days ago

          Yeah, pretty much.

          “Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”

          (Barbarous ancestors meaning Jefferson and his friends)

    • tym@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      There are a ton of datapoints suggesting funny business, but the kremlin had them drill home the interference chant so loudly and brashly for the 4 preceding years that nobody here dares bring it up out of some kind of egotistical fear. Kamala had the means and data to force the issue, but this is a bipartisan thinning of the herd.

      Murica LLC was purchased over the years after deregulation by reagan. ruzzia won the cold war, it just took 50 years.

    • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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      3 days ago

      I don’t completely believe in George Carlin’s mindset of just turning a blind eye from the system, but he was right that you get exactly what you put into it. Voter apathy is more than just not showing up to vote, it’s voting but then not paying attention to what the representatives are doing, and not telling them you don’t like it (or you like it, positive feedback is good too). A representative government won’t work if you don’t stay involved except for a single day in two or four years.

      • Deceptichum@quokk.au
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        3 days ago

        We only have power a single day every few years under representational “democracy”. Representatives time and time again ignore the wishes of their constituents because and by design it’s too difficult to participate in the system.

        • Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip
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          3 days ago

          Most localities have elections every year. Maybe try participating locally and you’ll start to see a difference…