The EC was implemented in part to prevent Trump. Too bad like everything else it was enshittified
this post was submitted on 18 May 2025
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It's so much more than the EC. The EC was really the best solution that they could come up with to elect a single person to run the Executive in a time where it was hard to hold statewide elections, much less a nationwide one. Senators were appointed directly by a State's legislature, and the President by electors appointed by the legislatures. This meant that the only Federal office that was directly voted on was Congress, making elections easier and much more local.
As long as elections were hyper-local, settling them based on a simple plurality of votes was practical, because it was also hard to coordinate nationally. The Founders did not want the same type of party-driven system they left in England. However, the big mistake was in keeping the FPTP voting after they switched to popular elections for Senate and the Presidency. That, coupled with better nationwide communication, directly contributed to out two-party system, and how backwards it is.
The two-party system directly contributed to America's sliding into fascism, when the only alternative to fascism is itself too drunk on campaign cash to let new blood into the system. But the primary issue is how throughly Trumpism has infiltrated the Republican Party, where they willingly give up their checks on the Executive and let him break laws with impunity. The Founders explicitly distributed power because they thought ambitious people would not give up power willingly. Today's Republicans are proving they were wrong.
As long as capitalism is involved, it’ll seep its way into any democratic system and uproot any “greater good,” “for the people” outcome in favor of whoever’s benefiting the most from the capitalist component.
The real problem is Citizens United, which held that money is speech. As long as that ruling holds, we will be ruled by the ones with the most money.
And right now, that group is the TechBros who ran the right software at the right time in 2011 and are now sitting on a stash of crypto worth billions....
Citizen United is the most American thing just like the founding fathers made the American democracy to be. There was no universal suffrage, power was concentrated in the hands of few.
Citizens United is the most ideologically capitalist thing ever tho.
Yeah if it were overturned it’d just rear its head again later by another name, and really it was just removing red tape that was likely being circumvented anyway.
It's not the same country. They're not the same people.
I would argue it's the same country and the same people. Capitalism was the guiding principle then it is the same now.
Why else would you not have universal suffrage, don't banish slavery, not conduct genocide, other than to concentrate power in hands of few while continuing exploitation of everyone.
Back then they were building the system for 'the betterment of all', hence what you mentioned. Now they're exploiting the system for personal gain, or to secure what they've already grifted, hence what you have today.