• @[email protected]
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    309 months ago

    Um, no. The entire system is broken; the GOP is just the natural result and most obvious symptom of that breakage.

    • Semi-Hemi-Demigod
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      219 months ago

      The fact that land gets more importance than people in our system is a big part of why Republicans have as much power as they have. We need to at least fully industrialize our system so that having a ton of land in an empty state doesn’t give you the right to dictate national policy.

      Sadly, this will require a Constitutional Convention, which will under our current Constitution gives even more power to these states.

      Interestingly the article governing Constitutional Conventions is under Article 5. I really hope we don’t have two of those at once. Things will get very confusing.

      • @[email protected]
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        89 months ago

        Conservative extremists are currently pushing for a Constitutional Convention, because they’ve gerrymandered enough/almost enough (depending on your particular opinion on “enough” in this radical scenario) state governments to allow them to recraft the Constitution as they’d prefer it to be.

        This would be an unmitigated disaster.

      • @[email protected]
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        29 months ago

        Given all the corruption a constitutional convention would be the final nail the coffin.

  • theodewere
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    9 months ago

    it’s the idiot fucking assholes who vote for them… there is no systemic cure for them…

    • @[email protected]
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      159 months ago

      Deprogramming them is going to be a decades-long process, and it can only begin when we break the far-right’s media machine. Cable news and political talk radio is the cancer that is killing this country, and cutting it out is a tall order. But it must be done; it’s going to take a long time to rehabilitate those who have been consuming the brain poison for 30+ years.

      • theodewere
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        19 months ago

        let’s go ahead and start with some good old fashioned smacks upside the head and see what good we do, before we do much prognostication

      • @[email protected]
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        -19 months ago

        It’s so much worse than that.

        In the entire history of the world, no one has EVER been able to deprogram a fascist cult of this size.

        In all of human history, across all times and cultures, the only way these people have ever been defeated was through bloody conflict.

        Remember, as much as you despise them bigotry, cruelty to immigrants and minorities, willful ignorance, taking away women’s rights, keeping us from affordable healthcare, siding with our enemies, etc,etc … They hate you JUST AS MUCH for entirely fictional grievances. They LITERALLY BELIEVE that Democrats are baby-killing pedophiles. They LITERALLY BELIEVE that the deep state is a real thing, and that it’s acting against them.

        The Q-ANON insanity is TRUTH to a huge portion of these absolute morons.

  • @[email protected]
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    9 months ago

    Personally I wouldn’t let the systematic flaws in our government system off the hook for enabling things like this to happen, having no formal way for citizens to recall federal representatives, and allowing justice to crawl so slowly it may not stop someone who committed crimes around and about the election in time from wining the next election and setting up a sham trial or impeachment that clears him and prevents him from being charged with that crime under double jeopardy laws ever again like they just did with Ken Paxton. A healthy system doesn’t ever get to where we are and there’s no getting around that it’s part of the problem. It really seems like the laws of this country are not enough to save it.

  • Prox
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    169 months ago

    Nope. It’s money. Republicans are just a symptom.

    Get rid of Citizens United and watch how things change.

    • @[email protected]
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      59 months ago

      Citizens united is also a symptom though, frankly I think we’re at the point where we either need a whole slew of constitutional ammendments, or a whole new one altogether, but I don’t see how either of those options is happening any time soon

    • @[email protected]
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      9 months ago

      Getting rid of Citizens United would be a great first step but things were going downhill way before that. CU was just gas (continually) poured on an already burning dumpster.

      But you’re right that money (and the corruption/influence it buys) is the root of all our political problems.

  • @[email protected]
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    69 months ago

    Thing is they don’t see themselves as broken. They see themselves as who they want to be - future dictators of America.

  • @[email protected]
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    59 months ago

    Everyone here claiming to have the answer are identifying things that aren’t true in other places in the world that have the same problem: right wing extremist populism.

  • @mindbleach
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    19 months ago

    A grown-up Republican Party — even a deeply conservative one — would accept the rule of law, the norms of liberal democracy, and the legitimacy of the opposing party.

    Conservatism is ingroup loyalty. Full stop. There is no other force in that moral universe. A particularly right-wing party could govern based on reality, but no, a deeply conservative party will always treat reality as a team sport.

    “Conservative policies” are whatever funnel power and wealth toward the powerful and wealthy.

    “Conservative ideals” are whatever mouth noises justify the latest grabbyhands policies.

    “Conservative icons” are whoever said the things they believe today, loud enough that people beneath them have to make up their own reasons that must be true.

    Our consistent and ill-advised infatuation with a two-party system

    Fuck’s sake. Nobody likes this - nobody chose this. The two-party system is forced upon us by math.

    Single-winner, first-past-the-post elections mean that any similar parties will fight to split their shared demographics. They cannibalize each other’s support. It is impossible for them to cooperate, except by merging together and promoting a single candidate. That’s how we got here - and until the ballots change from check-one-name, that will never change.

  • @[email protected]
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    -139 months ago

    Republicans were taken over by populists, and populists don’t seek to govern, they seek to impose their will.

    If anyone here thinks the Democrat party wouldn’t be exactly like the current Republican Party if they got swept by Progressives, I have several fine bridges to sell you.

    Populism is brain cancer.