politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:

- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
he has to apologize for being aligned with what voters want? isn't that, as political scientists call it, the whole fucking point of democracy?
The point of democracy is getting a paycheck from AIPAC as far as DNC leadership is concerned.
You of course know that america isn't really a democracy. It's a republic by design. And of course what it is in reality is a whole nuther something.
This dumbass "republic not democracy" take has got to die already.
It's true. When people say democracy, they usually mean direct democracy. That ain't what we got. We have a representative democracy, often called a republic. And even at that, the party establishment control who we can even vote for. So we only get to choose from the representatives they give us for the most part.
Nobody means direct democracy when they say democracy. That's not really a thing
You can speak for every single person on the planet. Oh, my bad. Just ust be right than.
A republic is a type of democracy. Specifically, it's a representative democracy.
When people say democracy, they usually mean direct democracy.
And even at that, the party establishment control who we can even vote for. So we only get to choose from the representatives they give us for the most part.
This just isn't true. The majority of democracies around the world today are representative democracies, and people colloquially refer to them simply as democracies.
That's partly true to varying degrees depending on what country you're referring to, but it also isn't that simple. The methods the establishment uses to control who gets party nominations are mostly indirect (i.e. media manipulating the narrative, PACs and dark money to campaigns, etc.). I think you're being overly cynical - which is fair - but we have more power than you think we do, we're just not very good at using it. Cynicism itself is one of the ways that the establishment controls who gets elected.
In short: the establishment has a stranglehold on democracy not because our democracies are fake (flawed, maybe even rigged a bit, sure, but not fake), but because they have us out-organized.
I agree that nearly no countries are direct democracies. But most people don't really know the difference. Just look how many people assume trump was the choice of the majority of americans. They don't know what the elctoral college even does. They think that they are in a direct democrqcy, though they don't know the name.
Cynicisim itself does not mean one doesn't participate in the process. I onow how it work, I know how badly the cards are stacked against me, but I vote anyway. And I read up on the local elections to make an informed decision. But I know that of the few who do vote, the majority don't spend much time reading up on cadadites.
And the establishment wins not because it is better organized, but because it has contol of more money.
A representative democracy like the US and a republic are literally the same fucking thing
Yes, I was being lazy typing. But when people say democracy, they usually mean direct democracy. And based on context, that was the meaning I took.
It is a democracy, just a shitty type of one. There's a bunch of different types and only like one is direct representation where every citizen votes on every issue and every time humans have tried that, they get real particular about what qualifies as citizen so it's all more or less the same. Anyway, if you're past high school you should probably retire that line of thinking because it's reductive, useless, and actually false.
Also, I would like to see a workable plan for increasing what we vite for without going full direct. But it's really hard to remove the influence advertising can have on such thing.
When people say democracy, they usually mean direct democracy. That ain't what we got. We have a representative democracy, often called a republic. And even at that, the party establishment control who we can even vote for. So we only get to choose from the representatives they give us for the most part. So what we have is the illusion of choice.
Nowhere in the world has that form of direct democracy.
Hm, you should maybe google that before you say it.
Provide example. Because there's no place that has a complete direct democracy with every citizen voting on every piece of legislation like you say.
You put added words that I didn't say. Nice try. The specifics you picked out tell me you already know the answer. Good job googling. Clearly you also know your are wrong, so now you are trying to change the statement to fit your interpretation of what I said. Fancy.
Direct democracy means every citizen votes on every thing. You're the one that said direct democracy. It's not my fault you don't know what the words you're using actually mean. You should work on that.
Ah, but it is your fault that you don't. The definition of direct democracy is not what you say it is. You have repeatedly made false claims. Where as I have not.
Take a way the overt racism and bigotry and the DNC and GOP leadership play the same game for the same team.