Political Memes

The myth of checks and balances.

The myth of (checks notes) every single admirable or positive aspect I was raised to believe was true about our system of government and our values as a nation.

I'm in my 50s. Somewhere WAY down the list of shit that I'm absolutely furious about is that I can no longer pretend that a single thing about US values or the resilient and balanced design of our government has turned out to be true.

Every single thing that has ever benefitted non-wealthy non-white non-male non-straight or non-cis people in the US has been hard won with blood over decades or centuries. And we're well on the way to undoing nearly all of those after not even two months of a despot in office.

Every thing I have ever been taught about what made the US great or special or even good has been a lie. It's very plain to see now. It turns out we had some elected people superficially following the rules, and that was really the only thing keeping it all together.

The checks and balances were there, but they've been methodically corrupted and dismantled over decades without anyone doing anything about it.

Democracy is a mental construct. It only constrains you if you believe in it. But it can give you over power as long as you convince enough people to do it. It will, however, never be restored once broken through violent means without the use of violent means.

I mean the checks and balances are definitely there. They've just been taken over too. You just can't have democracy without the people having faith in democracy.

That's the fallacy ..... it was never a democracy

No, it was not half of voting population; go and research how US voting “works”

Also Congress is complicit.

That's a pretty good analogy IMO.

The guard rails last time where the democrats having a majority in one half of congress. That guard rail is gone.

The Neoliberals are fine with that.

They don't care if they lose, or are in the White House, they just want their half of the corpo bribe gravy train Reagan set up for them when the American people lost their vote on the shape or priorities of our economy.

Standing against the capital markets ending the country and the planet itself for short term profits would cost them those bribes. Those bribes are why most of them are in politics.

They had no incentive to fix the guard rails. Biden/Pelosi/Schumer still see Republicans as their esteemed opposition, aka partners in their culture war stoking divide and profit grift, and those with a desire to help us become a society again like AOC and Sanders as their enemies.

https://www.axios.com/2024/12/12/aoc-pelosi-oversight-committee-connolly-raskin Neoliberal priorities The month before Trump took power. Assembling Guard rails to their left, exclusively.

https://apnews.com/article/business-nancy-pelosi-congress-8685e82eb6d6e5b42413417f3d5d6775 Neoliberal priorities in general.

Honestly I see Biden's parting comments, not actions but comments after a career of enabling oligarchs, as latent guilt by a senile old man who was an OG neoliberal sellout to the Reagan capitalist coup.

True. But hard when they've only ever been in a daycare.

It's interesting the maturity, views and domestic priorities of an American that has travelled to other parts of the globe and one that has never left. To some, the daycare is their world, so it's hard to imagine them acting as though they're in "the real world".

The daycare relies on that.

I don't think it's a war thing at all. America was THE world power, and there were a lot of people working against American ideals because it was the largest economy/country that could fight back, but if you look around, even countries that have seen war are struggling with the rise of the right. Brexit, the AfD, and Poland/turkey in general, not to mention Russia have all shown that what's happening in America isn't America specific. There's a collection of bad actors everywhere and it's happening regardless of if a place had seen war or not. Governments everywhere are being corrupted by the wealthy and/or being dismantled in favor of religious authoritarianism/nationalism.

If anything, you're seeing Trump pull back from war, and soft and hard power that would prevent war, and it's in an effort to lessen Americas impact on the world stage.

Another big part is that Americans have been taught that protesting is the only valid method of affecting change. Our history books spend a lot of time talking about MLK’s peaceful protests. It totally glosses over all of the violence and angry mobs that were the other side of the same coin. My history book in high school only had the Black Panthers as a footnote.

The government has a vested interest in not teaching Americans that violent protest is effective. It’s like the history books cover the American revolution, and paint the revolutionaries as proud patriots who were justified after dealing with an oppressive monarchy. And then there’s a hard pivot towards “oh and also violent protest is never okay, and you should just chant at your local park instead.”

Hell, look at the comments sections of any protest coverage, and you’ll see people blatantly stating that they’d make a point of running over protestors who blocked a highway. There are plenty of people who fully believe that protest is only supposed to be directed at the government, and should never inconvenience the citizens.

Barring civil religion, the USA has had a relatively stable government during its history.

The country is on its second basic law since its founding, with the current basic law being in force for over 200 years.

There has been only one civil war and that war is long outside the memory of living Americans.

There was a recent national coup attempt in 2020, but the transition of power that the coup was trying to prevent still occurred.

National borders haven't been seriously threatened in the lifetime of its citizens, with the last loss of territory of the Philippines being carried out as a planned internal political matter.

You'd be hard pressed to find another country with that record.