Summary

In his farewell speech, President Joe Biden warned of a growing “oligarchy” in the U.S., where extreme wealth and power threaten democracy.

Comparing modern elites to 19th-century robber barons, he called for reforms to hold the wealthy accountable, as done in the past.

Biden also criticized a “tech-industrial complex” concentrating power and spreading disinformation, weakening democracy.

His remarks sparked a surge in Google searches for “oligarchy.”

The speech comes amid rising concerns about policies favoring billionaires, like Trump’s tax cuts and potential cuts to social safety programs.

  • dream_weasel
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    5 hours ago

    Given the choice between kids in cages, outrageous nepotism and kakistocracy, insurrection, blatant authoritarianism, and LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE, nobody should need to convince you to choose “anything else”. It should be self evident.

    Democrats may suck, but “I voted for pre-hitler because you didn’t sell something I wanted to buy” looks way worse on the voters who just can’t see the value or the difference. You are right we should have better options, but I reject the idea out of hand that the rise of trumpism rests solely on democrats not being exciting. Likewise I wouldn’t say they are the ones voting against their own interests.

    • WarlordSdocy@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      It’s not solely resting on that but I think it’s a large part. There’s a lot of people who just don’t vote or care about politics at all because there’s no good options. Many of them were excited and drawn out by Obama but ended up getting burned when he didn’t bring the real change they were looking for. They then got excited for Bernie but again got burned when he didn’t win and was pushed back on by the entire party. So now these people are just staying home and not voting. If you promised and carried through on many of the popular issues like healthcare for all you would activate these people and not have to worry as much about the maga movement since you would have a lot more voters excited to go out to vote for you. People aren’t as excited about going out to vote against Trump which is why we saw much lower turnout this year. Democrats just can’t really excite people and until they can they are just relying on people hating Trump enough it motivates them to go and vote.