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Comment by spl757 | Hacker News Reader

The US is currently governed by a dictator propped up by an oligarchy that can only do that because of the Citizens United supreme court decision. Until Citizens United is mitigated, and that appears to be starting to happen as states make laws that state you can't be on the ballot in their state if you take large, anonymous campaign donations from people who will want, and get, a return on their investment. Hawaii is either considering, or has passed just such a law. We don't even need a plurality of states to make similar laws, just the right ones. Look at a chart of campaign spending prior to, and following the Citizens United decision. Spoiler alert, it looks like a hockey stick standing upright.

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An elected dictator with a nearing term limit. America continues to innovate!

Competitive authoritarianism is a closer term that IR people use.

One I belive has no intention of leaving office, and is trying to prevent the midterm elections from happening. Since the founding of the US, no elections have been delayed, or missed. Not once. Not during WWII, not after 9/11, never.

The failure that allowed trump to happen stems from one thing. Lack of imagination. The system in the US assumes that all of the politicians are at least attempting to argue in good faith. trump is more like a hurricane. he rolled in, fucked everthing up, and will roll out.

After November when the Democrat party has control of the upper and lower houses of congress, there are going to be investigations, grand jury indictments, and people will go to prison. They will also begin the work of closing some of the loopholes that were used to bypass how the government is supposed to operate.

Putin also had a nearing term limit, but he found a transparent way around it.

He didn't have "Putin next election year" merch for it, so I guess you can say this is innovation.

Bribery and collusion existed well before Citizen's United, notably through shell PACs. Now there is a clear methodology that is less troublesome. Maybe behavior was amplified, but I doubt it.

Citizens United is a scapegoat here. The people genuinely want what they voted for.

But the people generally seem to want whatever the person who spends the most money on media says they should want.

Harris rose over twice as much money as Trump in 2024.

Maybe you are right, and it's a scapegoat here. CU was and continues to be a disaster for this country, and I don't think enough attention can be brought to it until it is mitigated.

No citizen voted for Citizens United. So it's inaccurate to say that we did.

Citizens United was a decision by an unelected group of federal judges we call the Supreme Court when a case was brought before them to determine if chump could have Navy Seal Team 6 assinate a political opponent. They ruled, that yeah, he can. Supreme court justices are appointed for life and have no oversight or ethical restrictions.

They are bound by duty to be impartial. They are not.

The Supreme court is not supposed to MAKE law, that's the job of Congress, they are supposed to interpret the law. The Citizens United supreme court decision made new law, but it was made by people that were not elected by the citizens of this country. They are not acting in good faith, and are clearly in it to help chump.

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