The American democratic republic has died. It was 236 years old.

Aside from this being a little fucking melodramatic and defeatist, the thing that really bothers me is the implicit assumption that if only we'd all just vote blue no matter who we wouldn't have this problem, like the Democratic Party hasn't been kowtowing to and enabling those same oligarchs to undermine our democracy. It's like they're standing in the rubble of a bombing and saying, 'This is happening because you chose the short fuse on the bomb, if only you had chosen the long fuse we ~~wouldn't have noticed this happening quite so quickly~~ wouldn't be having this problem!'

Don't get me wrong, boom tomorrow is definitely better than boom today, but it's important to not forget that there was never not going to be a boom.

The d’s had 50 years to come up with their own plan. And they did nothing. We had a choice of different sides of the same coin and here we are.
- Even if they had the time frame that Republicans had with drafting and promoting Project 2025, they could have had their own. They knew it existed, only Trump pretended it never existed and was a hoax.
  If the DNC had its own Project 2025, something like "Project End Fascism" it could have worked. Instead we got "Maybe 100K for new home owners. Not gonna go after the corporations buying every home."
- Yup, they have no positive vision for the future anymore since they're so far up the oligarchs' asses they can't see past the end of their nose. And people still choose the 'lesser evil' and then act like they're somehow surprised that what they got was still evil.
- If we strip-mine all the social programs before Republicans get the chance we can do it in a way that keeps the most important part of the system in place. Checkmate fascists!
- Bullshit. If Gore won, there'd be compost powered cars and shit. Hilary was pushing for Obamacare since her husband was in office. Biden was all about stimulus to working families. We've been living if the New Deal over half a century.
What I don't get from the American people, who have always portrait themselves as champions of everything with this attitude now of "there was no way to avoid it because we are legless turtles and all we can do is vote blue or red and hope our daddies do right by us"
True, the last election would not had saved you but anyone with a firing neuron saw this coming 40 years ago and you all did fuck all to avoid it while still making ignorant jokes about the French being cowards
- Take North Korean propaganda, paint it red white and blue and give it a specific set of "freedoms" and you'll have any answer of "how". We're literally made to be this way. Even those of us with a "firing neuron" are a result of this propaganda, granted just not in the intended way. Drowning and understanding why we're drowning ends the same way.
- Indeed, although anyone who says they knew what shape this would take 40 years ago was either a liar or a time traveler, I've been watching it go to shit for my entire life. I too tried voting blue for 30 years only to watch them unwind and fall apart when the chips were down. Now I favor rather more extreme measures, but most Americans are like 'waah, I keep choosing the lesser evil, why do we keep getting evil?!'
- Yeah, I've been expecting this shit since childhood. Weird now how the people who raised me to see it coming consistently voted to make it happen.
- there's a reason The Grapes of Wrath has that turtle section in it...
- I'm so sick of these high tower pseudo-big brain "told ya so" comments. "I saw the end of the US before it's inception. I saw the end of the US when humans migrated from Siberia 16,000 years ago!" Well, you are so smart and I'm so proud of you, but you aren't adding a damn thing to the conversation.
Aside from this being a little fucking melodramatic and defeatist, the thing that really bothers me is the implicit assumption that if only we’d all just vote blue no matter who we wouldn’t have this problem, like the Democratic Party hasn’t been kowtowing to and enabling those same oligarchs to undermine our democracy. I
Reminder that Clinton pushed for Trump to be the nominee as she thought she would win easier with him. Trump is a non-zero amount of Clinton's fault.
Don’t get me wrong, boom tomorrow is definitely better than boom today, but it’s important to not forget that there was never not going to be a boom.
Playing hot potato with a bomb, passing it along between various administrations and congressional members, and none of them were going to get hurt. It was always going to explode with the victims being the 99%.
- Indeed, on both counts.
enabling those same oligarchs to undermine our democracy.
Oh you didn't hear? You can't say oligarchs because American simpletons need to hear "king" instead because we have a long history of fighting kings and definitely not because the term oligarch applies to more than just Trump but instead better describes the cozy relationship between money and power in this country and illustrates that the rich have captured the government.
- better describes the cozy relationship between money and power in this country and illustrates that the rich have captured the government.
  That's exactly why I use it.
I've been hoping to hear some sort of glimmer of a thought from someone that when America does wrestle control back from the fascists, and history says you will, one way or another, that you don't just rebuild the same system that produced Trump and his techno-fascist mates in the first place.
This interview was the first time I've actually heard it.
- Buttigieg is establishment democrat. Actually listen to him instead of doing what most people do, which is stare at him and wait for him to "say something gay" and then be impressed that he's such a great orator. He's never advocated for the social and financial overhaul that the US needs. He's argued that the system is sufficient for our best outcomes, the same system that is currently on fire.
  This reminds me of Obama so much. On one hand it would be nice to have another leader who unites the country, but Obama wasn't necessarily good for our nation's long-term future. He was not a leftist or advocate for the poor, he was also establishment Dem/Liberal who passed every opportunity to create real and lasting change in the country.
  Buttigieg is currently touring the right-wing spaces and dropping his messages there without resistance because he's advocating for preserving the wealth in the country. He's tacitly being endorsed by the billionaire class. They want a return to normalcy, and Buttigieg may have exactly what the country needs to get there, which is clear messaging, hypnotic blue eyes and an appeal to many men's latent curiosity about what what a strong homosexual male even looks like... or if nothing else, an avenue for libs and neo-libs to feel performatively progressive by dropping his name. It's enthralling to the masses and we should all be terrified.
  He is going to be a strong candidate if we have elections again, and I would take him over Trump, but we need to understand what he is. He is NOT our leftist savior, he's barely more progressive than a liberal savior.
  I want to make it clear, if he's the final candidate against like, Mecha Trump or Don JR or Vance or someone equally absurd, we all better push Buttigieg's booty up that hill and I will wave that rainbow flag along with everyone else. But we have to understand that it's a band-aid on a massive infected wound that's bleeding out.
- I.. I'm conflicted. Buttigieg talks a great game, I like much of what he has to say, but at the same time when he was in the 2020 primary I read an article that talked about how he had the most corporate/PAC support of any candidate and I wonder.. does he actually believe what he's saying, or is he just charismatic enough to pull off seeming like he does and he's just like every other career politician? And also even if he's 100% sincere and he wins the white house in 2028, he doesn't have a free hand because the money required to win a national election comes with rather sturdy strings attached, so I don't think he can accomplish what he claims to want.
  But it is, I will admit, rather refreshing to find a Democrat who does in fact have some good-sounding ideas about how to make things better instead of just 'vote for me or the world will literally blow up!11'
- IDK why people are so hopeful of fascism falling within their lifetime?
  The fascists in power now have technology in everybody's pockets, even your light bulbs for crying out loud
  They can track you within feet across the country. And a lot of this stuff, you can't really avoid. You can't really go off the grid if you want to have a normal job now
  Not only that, look at China. China is still here and has been for quite some time...
I mean, nobody who paid attention actually thought the democrats did enough. The whole point was to buy enough time to hopefully shame them into doing something progressive instead of token concessions, but it's a moot point now.
- shame them into doing something progressive
  That's been failing for the 30+ years during which I voted blue, why does anyone imagine it would suddenly start succeeding now?
The only way to have time to stop the bomb from going off is to choose the longer fuse. We didn't even give ourselves a chance to replace neoliberalism with socialism, people let fascism win in 2024.
- The longer fuse was still a fuse and was picked over and over for so many years without anything else done. At this point other then being able to say "don't blame me I voted for kodos" there is little value in the "long fuse" party. The us needed real options outside of fascism vs fascism lite.
- How much time would you need and what would you do?
- Stopping the bomb from going off is wishful thinking, but I agree, that's why I said 'boom tomorrow is definitely better than boom today`.
Yeah, it's definitely melodramatic. I just enjoyed how it laid out the actions of Trump that got us here, as well as describing the expanded role of the Executive.
- Fair.
Melodramatic and defeatist?
On Lemmy?
Literally at this point I feel like that sentiment is the product of a successful psyop.
So cute copium, but it's over. You can discuss what we can do with the next empire? I'm over this one and good riddance honestly it was cringe at the end.
- Here's a radical idea: let's not have one. Let's instead have a society that is committed to ensuring that the needs of all of its citizens are met instead of just those of the capitalist class. Voting (blue or not) will never get you there though, because both parties are on the same corporate dark money IV drip. This shithole is the way it is because the people with all the money and power want it this way, and if you think voting will dig you out of it you haven't been paying attention.

time to flee to the old world from prosecution and religious pressure lol

Electric Boogaloo

It differs by state but America only became a democracy by modern standards in the 1960’s. There was arguably a brief period after the Civil War before Reconstruction ended but women couldn’t vote so I give it a C- on my Democracy-O-Meter (patent pending).

Also, a Gentleman’s C is a term for a reason. That’d be an F at a commuter school. Only private schools put up with polite rich kids who are dumbasses but come from a “good” family.

- The United States in the mid 1800’s is famously known as a place and time of peace and harmony where gentlemen-scholars voted in free and fair elections.

Imagine counting the first four score and seven years as democratic.

we count ancient Greece as a democracy, don't we?
Last I checked, democracy didn't mean "fair," it ment that the leaders were voted into power.
- we count ancient Greece as a democracy, don’t we?
  In the same way we count the Wright Flyer as the first airplane, sure.
  democracy didn’t mean “fair”
  I have heard more than a few people discount the existence of democracies in US adversary states - such as Cuba and Venezuela and Russia - precisely on the grounds that their democracies aren't "fair".
  Broadly speaking, "democracy but its a rigged election" is just dictatorship with extra steps.
- I guess this means that Russia is a democracy.
- By this standard, the US is still a democracy. Leaders are still voted into power and that isn't going to change.
  Will they let everyone vote? Obviously not, but you seem to think it's democracy when only white men can vote so...
- we count ancient Greece as a democracy, don’t we?
  We? No. But they gotta keep the bar as low as possible to justify this fantasy.
By contrast to literally every other country. Yes very much in that time period. Believe it or not, most monarchies were also completely fine with slavery and plantations. And their citizens had even less political power.
- By contrast to literally every other country.
  One of the proximate causes of the American Revolution was British abolitionism leaking into colonial politics.
  You had ex-military ultra-wealth planation owners defecting to the revolution in drovers following Dunmore's Proclamation.
  most monarchies were also completely fine with slavery and plantations
  They were completely fine with collecting rents off their subjects - slave or free. But quite a few of them had strong reservations against chattel slavery (the Spanish Catholics, most notably). And more simply could not stomach the expense of policing transatlantic trade from piracy.
  That is what ultimately lead to the outlawing of the practice across Europe.
- Democracy isn't defined relative to other countries. Only property-owners could vote, and only white men could own property, so that means the vast majority of the population couldn't vote. That doesn't sound like a democracy to me, that sounds like an aristocracy. I will grant you it was more democratic than monarchies and such, but even some of them (like the UK) had a parliamentary system so the king's power wasn't universal. They were deeply unequal, of course, but that's just the pot calling the kettle black, because so was (and is) the US.
Only recently has everyone above the 18 had the ability to vote, excluding those who are slaves as per the 13th amendment. For most of American history, women couldn't vote. Black people weren't considered people. We kicked out anyone Chinese. We locked away Japanese Americans because they were ethnically Japanese.
America was maybe a democracy for 56 years, since the Voting Rights Act of 1968. That's a stretch at best, as the country never healed for being an Apartheid for 200 years.
Right? Someone clearly hasn't read Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.

This article must be written by naive children. The moment "American Democracy" died would be with the Patriot Act after 911.

Snowden, Assange and all that.

You sure it wasn’t when we had the balls to write that all men are created equal while simultaneously denying the rights of anyone who wasn’t a rich man?
Like I know it was a different time but the plot was lost long ago.
- Most "democracies" started off with slavery so I think the counting needs to start somewhere in the middle.
- And it was still seen as radically progressive
Citizens United has entered the chat
- Citizens United was about bribing the campaigns but there was still a "rule of law".
  The Patriot act basically threw the entire legal sysrem in the dumpster in a very blatant way.
  Of course there were violations before that but the cut off needs to be made somewhere.
- Eh, that was just a rebranding of "We the People". Same bunch of rich white dudes with an aversion to taxes.
The moment “American Democracy” died would be with the Patriot Act after 911.
American Democracy flourished from 1864 to 1877, only to be killed by The Corrupt Bargain of Rutherford B. Hayes. It enjoyed a brief resuscitation following the 19th Amendment in 1919 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, before once again becoming moribund and unresponsive under the Nixon Administration of 1972. By the election of 2000 the institution barely demonstrated a pulse, enjoying one of the lowest turnouts in the nation's history. Still, it was the Brooks Brother's Riot that officially pulled the plug, with the democracy formally being pronounced dead on December 12th, twenty days later.
The Patriot Act was effectively just putting bullet holes into a corpse.
Subsequent gerrymandering in 2005, the ACORN controversy of 2009, and the 2016, 2020, and 2024 primaries were effectively just ritualized defacement of the grave.
Or with the implementation of institutionalized slavery.
- Neo libertarian with capitalism pleasure doing business with you.
- Was it even alive then?

In a couple thousand years historians will call us the Merkin Empire

Yep... it was good run, but we need to renew the plant of freedom with the blood of tyrants

If you're not good at US history: 1789 was when the Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation.

Inch by inch, in play at little games.

we should all start delegitimising the USA and call it what it is: a long lasting colony committing multiple genocides

And once Trump, the GOP and the oligarchs are deposed, we should declare the American Second Republic and write a new constitution.

It's not over yet

Or as AOC would put it: "Don't consent in advance"

TBH I think peak democracy was between 2003 and 2010 before the Citizens United decision.

It gave us Obama and Medicaid expansion.

Nah, The US hasn't been good since before Reagan. I'd say maybe the 1950s. Maybe 60s, space race years.
- Maybe for you it might have been, or maybe not, but back then we didn't have equal rights. After that Nixon actually helped save the Whales so that was cool, but he also perpetuated the war in Vietnam for seemingly no reason at all.
  We like to fantasize about the past but quality of life has only gone up and crime has only gone down long term.

I personally am riding out the storm before I make any call on this type of stuff. As much as the current president is mucking things up, I'm holding hope.

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
- Exactly what I was thinking.
Don't just hope, Act!
Find and join your local democratic organization. The initial cost in time is almost nothing. Just meet up and introduce yourself.
Once part of the conversation, you can help influence your local party and select candidates for local office that share your values. You can select delegates who vote in larger offices, and through them promote your goals.
It's not perfect, and we currently don't have a flawless democratic system, but participating only every 2-4 years during the major elections is not how you get the results you want. A lot of complaints exist online around weak candidates, or 'opposition party' that exists only to be a foil for the Right. Those things can only exist if we are not engaged.
The time to be engaged is NOW. Help find or support new House and Senate candidates for your state legislature as well as federal. Contest every office. Even if your precinct/district seems 100% red, not having candidates on the ballot is a huge disservice to anyone who would want to vote for them and hides our strength.
Now is the time to be loud.
- I have voted every single time I could since I got registered to vote.
  If I didn't absolutely jumble my words and such due to some form of anxiety when speaking with people over the phone, I probably would call elected officials in my area.
  Best I can do outside of voting is going to some of the protests in my area and not posting anything about what happens online for safety reasons.

Name one year that the US was a democracy.

You're being downvoted but you're not far off. Women and minorities couldn't vote for a very long time. We had slaves and still do through incarceration. It's only been in the last few decades that we were closest to be what we claimed to be, and yet still quite a ways off. And that progress was greeted with the system coming down on us attempting to "fix" what we had broken by moving towards true freedom for all.
- If over half of the population is unhappy with the election results after an election takes place, I think its clear you're not living in a democracy.
  I think a Parliament and rank choice voting are prerequisites to democracy. The only reason the US doesn't have these things is to ensure that the power remains in the hands of the plutocrats
2024 when fascists won a fair and free election. Our democracy was never perfect, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a democracy.
Insisting America wasn't a democracy isn't clever analysis. It's factually wrong and it's not even an effective narrative to fight fascists.
- It wasn't fair or free. What part of that can't you see?
  If we fix the democracy, they never would have taken power. We had like 8 parties running, and only 2 very similar parties got the majority of the votes. That's not because people wanted to vote for them, but because progressives are legally denied access and violence was used against them when they tried to attend the debates.
  That's neither fair nor free. Its an illusion of choice where the only options support the status quo of oligarchy

all men are created equal

IS SLAVE STATE

Never has been.

Is a two party system really a democracy?

If you think so, let me pick the two options you get to choose from for the rest of your life. Does that sound appealing to you? Would just fully represent the country?

No you don't ever get a chance to change your two options, I picked them for you. You will fall in love with one of them, the other you will hate. This is democracy, you being forced to pico from the two options I gave you.

It already was dead for a long time.

No, it wasn't, but it's been dying since Reagan.
- Since Johnson.
  But it was Hoover that laid the framework for the rampant executive abuses of Nixon, Reagan, the Bushes, and Trumpolini.

"Democratic" in the loosest sense of the word.

Imagine believing USA was ever a "democracy".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_religion

I think it's more important to realize the harm that's happening now than the 200+ year old technicalities, though being important themselves, aren't what's most vital at this current moment.
- I'd argue the exact opposite, because I see a whole lot of people who seem to think all we need to do is remove Trump and the American government will be A-okay. Until we recognize and start to deal with the rot at the core of the U.S. we're just going to keep doing this same ol song and dance again and again. Until people recognize that fascism is not a bug but a feature, we have no hope of moving beyond it to a better system of governance.
Neckbeard comment
The US was a democracy. Having a civil religion has no bearing on whether or not a country is a democracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_fallacy

America was designed to be a confederacy ala the EU. Post civil war Federalism was the beginning of the end for the small 'd' democracy that the framers intended. Everything since has been duct taped together. Prior to the civil war the Federal Government had very little power. Liberal progressives spent the last 150 years centralizing power in the Fed and are now being hoisted by their own petard. It's funny actually.

Heritage Foundation tier nonsense
- Error 404 argument not found
  Most of the Lemmy crowd would probably side ideologically with Thomas Jefferson and he called the Federal government the "foreign department".
I've come around myself. Centralized government allows those mutants a shot at an expanded Executive seat of power. Federation allows them to fester in their own state.
We can't forcibly save dumb white trash. We can just make Illinois, California, and New York capable of taking the refugees in.
- Yeah but having desperately poor states bordering wealthy ones would require lots of security. There will be lots of desperate, unhappy people with lots of guns and potentially no reciprocity. I worry it would just lead to modern day bleeding Kansas or an Amercan wide version of the Troubles.
  Like they're already trying to take over the federal government, what's stopping them from trying to take over a neighboring state?

The U.S. is survived by a country of the same name, the United States of America, now a presidential dictatorship.

This gets an eye roll from me. The USA is certainly in a lot of danger but anyone who calls the current situation a dictatorship is ignorant of what a dictatorship is.

Here's a hint for the author: you wouldn't be getting an article like this one published in a dictatorship.

There were still protesters in Nazi Germany.
- Yeah, but they were kidnapped off the street and shipped into camps oversees
  ...wait
Here’s a hint for the author: you wouldn’t be getting an article like this one published in a dictatorship.
It's still a WIP just give them a couple years.
- That's my whole point. Might things be a lot worse in a couple of years? Yes. Are things as bad as this article is all about saying they are right now? No, clearly not.
  "The American democratic republic is in danger of dying" is true.
  "The American democratic republic has died" is histrionics, and histrionics are particularly counterproductive at a time when what's actually going on is so serious.
Yeah, it's definitely melodramatic. I just liked the succinct description of the whole timeline.