What we’re witnessing now is what should be called corruption. That corruption that everyone has been screaming for years. But finally real.
Remember, the job of these people’s propaganda is not to say that they’re better than the other side. It’s to say that they’re all the same. That’s it. And when you claim that this corruption is just a continuation of previous corruption, just bigger, and not a difference between essentially not having and having corruption (there’s always some small percentage of corruption, just like any crime) is essentially sweeping for them. It’s repeating their talking points.
Like everyone here said, they just don’t even care about being “caught”. Not ten years ago most of this stuff would likely end a career or land you in prison.
Now it’s just, “So what? Nobody can do anything.”
It’s not better that the corruption is blatant. They’re rubbing our faces in it, and not the least bit concerned about consequences. The message is clear… there aren’t any, anymore.
And the most insulting was how they telegraphed it all. Accuse people of things they clearly didn’t do… and then actually do all those things.
The real issue is that partisanship tends to blind certain people to corruption when 'their side' is in office, which largely works as an enabling factor. When nobody cares or nothing happens over a 'little' corruption, it just leads to a little more, and the next thing you know - you get to where we are.
Anyhow kind of a rant but it's an insight I had as to why nobody can agree on anything despite lots of folks probably being honest/good faith actors.
So large 'awakenings' require localized extreme circumstances, or at least the perception of extreme circumstances. That perception keyword is what makes everything so dumb, but I won't complain. More people being 'aware' is a great thing, regardless of how we get there.
It has always existed, but it is absurdly easy now and happening in plain sight.
Kinda like when women say that men harass them in the bars and a lot of men seem confused because we don't think we harass them, when it can be like 1 guy harassing 20 women in a bar on the same night.
So I think it's quite unevenly distributed.
Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment for political corruption.
Reagan colluded with Iran to prevent the release of hostages during Carter's re-election campaign and later sold them weapons to bypass congressional oversight.
These are just a couple well known examples at the presidential level, I am sure that for every one we know about there are dozens if hundreds of similar examples.
Go further down the scale to the congressional, state, city, and municipal levels and you encounter even pettier levels of corruption where you can buy votes for 5 figure construction contracts or just simple cash handoffs.
Note that it set the terrible precedent of the President pardoning high level crimes.
But Reagan did not put any money in his pocket. Other than a set of snow tires, Lt.Col Oliver North did not take any money for himself.
It makes it better, somehow, not for money to be the motive. Or maybe it makes it worse.
Edit: I don’t really care though, I’m not a US citizen. Trump is terrible still. Shouldn’t have voted him in. :shrug:
And bailing out bank shareholders during the '08 financial crisis.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/xmd8ut/why_d...
The big banks were one of the top donors to Obama's 2008 campaign. The fact that none of the banks were prosecuted or even held accountable for the crisis raises big questions how much the campaign funding influenced the way the bailout was structured. It also doesn't help Obama that he was famous for going after private funding after backtracking on his pledge not to do so.
Bush's story is similar but with energy companies the most famous being Halliburton who funded his election campaign and turned out to be the biggest beneficiaries to profit from the Iraq war. It probably wouldn't have upset people as much had it not been that the Bush family had close ties to this company and where Dick Cheney also happened to be the CEO. It was a big scandal at that time you can go read back on, but as is with many of these scandals everything seems to be forgotten or forgiven with time. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same with Trump 20 years from now.
- Bush invaded Iraq because an oil company funded his campaign?
- Obama bailed out banks (a thing every government worldwide was doing) because banks funded his campaign?
There’s no evidence of these claims, compared to the evidence of a fucking private jet being bought for Trump in comparison. Also Trump has enriched himself, personally, more than any president in history by quite some margin, using the office of President. I just wanted to show what you’re equivocating about, here.
In many cases corruption is only known to the perpetrator, because it is a matter of intent. One can always proffer a different reason for what they are doing than what they actually intended and when those reasons later turn out to be false, you may never really know whether they acted in good faith in the first place.
So corruption largely comes down to perception end of the day. It is ultimately a matter of trust and when that trust is eroded, the perception of corruption grows. There's no smoke without fire. When we see smoke in a building, we do not go searching for proof of fire, we just gtfo because the risk is too much. We should do the same when we see red flags in people in powerful positions.
Please name a bailed out bank which didn't hit shareholders.
This arrangement probably wouldn't have upset people so much were the people responsible for the crisis held accountable. Worse still, they paid themselves huge bonuses as soon as they got bailed out from the bailout money itself! All this made people question the real intention behind the bailout. Corruption is often effected indirectly, so as to give the perpetrator plausible deniability.
This is very different from the current admin at least. But direct profiteering by high level officials didn't happen or they were very good at hiding it. They did make their friends and old colleagues very rich, maybe that it reason enough?
And I am someone that considers that administration to be full of war criminals that manufactured a reason to invade Iraq.
Which one stopped the CIA from overthrowing democratic elections in other countries right from their inception, starting with Italy in the 50s and continuing with Operation Gladio all throughout Europe and moving into Southeast Asia as they worked with criminal groups to perfect their narco funded guerrilla warfare machine?
Did Trump even catch up to the number of bombs that "peace prize" Obama dropped in 8 years?
There are no sides, there's just a corporate Uniparty putting on some theater for you and you can absolutely prove that out if you dig past surface material and surface thinking.
Bad news is, you're probably in the midpoint of that meme bell curve. Grown up structures and institutions are designed well, with accountability built-in. Many many good people work in them, who hate corruption as much as you do. Bad actors are whistle-blowed upon, persecuted, convicted, and imprisoned. It's incredibly difficult in practice to do anything significantly corrupt and stay unnoticed. I don't know if you work (like, at a large-size workplace), but imagine doing something shady at your work, surrounded by your colleagues. It's not easy. The amount of surveillance, paper trail, auditing that government work entails is way more than any normal business.
The irony is that your unending cynicism is actually turning you into a fool for the other side: the populists that constantly discredit institutions. They figured out that your cynicism (aversion to being scammed?) is so strong, that it can be used to scam you. They only need to discredit everyone else, that's easy. Make conspiratorial allegations based on perceived outcomes, not actual proof. Sell you all the cynicism in the world: everything is broken, everyone's bad, and you're one of the smart ones who sees it. US institutions are corrupt and worthless. This lets them pretend to be experts, because you're now a guest in their version of reality. And they directly financially benefit from your attention.
Institutions maintain real internal accountability (none of these alternative media populists do), implement real processes that work, tackle real issues in ways that take into account all stakeholders, and don't just produce slogans and talking points. I know they're old and not cool, but they work. Unfortunately, very few groups are left that actually defend them, you all got scammed by relentless, self-serving, financially incentivized alternative media into thinking that everything is broken.
Just because things are complex, doesn't mean they're broken. Just because measures taken aren't always satisfying, doesn't mean they are malicious. Don't get scammed into this world view by people who directly financially benefit from selling it.
We could just decide that’s not how it goes.
We see the same thing with companies. If everyone else is using, say, shady dark patterns you’re not, you lose market share and go out of business. The only result then is that everyone must use dark patterns, it stops being optional.
If everyone is corrupt, how will you compete with the amount of money needed to campaign and maintain incumbency? You won’t.
The only solution is to make corruption systemically difficult or impossible. Individual solutions and morals will go absolutely nowhere, because they’re ineffective at a structural level. Corruption is contagious by construction, the very nature of our political structure makes it so.
By voting, etc. Not by running for office.
> If everyone is corrupt, how will you
by doing it before literally everyone is corrupt.
The difference now is the openness and also the scale. If a president does one bad thing the press will dig into it, committees will investigate, etc. But what if the president does 20 bad things every single day? The press doesn’t know how to report on that and the legal process is as slow as molasses. And by tomorrow everyone will have forgotten because there’ll be new bad things.
It's trivial to remember corruption issues from 100+ years ago (I learned about one in middle school with Teapot Dome and political "machines", and those are hardly the full extent) so this is another one of those cliches that is easy to claim but is never proven. There's always some. Humans gonna human. But that doesn't mean either (a) there's always a high and critical amount in magnitude-of-impact OR (b) it's been definitely increasing.
Let's stop saying it as a general trend without examples.
On the flip side, let's keep pointing to all the specific Trump examples.
It's naive to believe that corruption is impossible or vanishingly rare. It's also naive to believe that the current administration is not a major step change.
"They" (the cult that worships Trump) would simply presume "TDS" over such an idea, but the fact here is that Trump absolutely is "off his rocker batshit insane" (to a degree we've not seen before in any U.S. president yet), and anyone who claims that he's "good for America" is just as (or more) insane than he is (or they genuinely do hate the U.S.A. and only support him because they know the kinda harm he's capable of doing).
Another fact is that if one really gives a damn about corruption, then you gotta start dealin' with it sometime or it just continues to get worse, and now is probably a good time to start, since it's currently lookin' so outta control that nearly everyone with more than a couple of braincells can easily see it and can't plausibly deny it, and givin' it time to fester doesn't seem like such a great idea. Historically it's never once been good to let the rot fester, and it never led to anything good for anyone to do so.
These days not much it would seem. :(
Primary legacy democrats. In NYC, the primary was the real election. Then vote in the replacement Democrat. Replace any Republican in any elected positions, then start taking a closer look at the local D machine.
"Many of the most damaging emails suggest the committee was actively trying to undermine Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign. Basically all of these examples came late in the primary -- after Hillary Clinton was clearly headed for victory -- but they belie the national party committee's stated neutrality in the race even at that late stage."
https://web.archive.org/web/20190630070810/https://www.washi...
Stop parroting lines from organisations dedicated to delegitimising liberal democracies.
Hard resets involve guillotines.
The have been many, many protests throughout history. Some did nothing, some changed history. Many of them were done under much, much more dangerous and difficult circumstances than a protest today in the US. Yes, some American protesters have already died at the hands of the authoritarian government, but that is only going to get worse and worse if you let it.
And we have public legal changes, multiple by supreme court, that make corruption impossible to prosesute and more likely.
Yes, the trend was there for a while. And Trump can do what he does because the institutions and laws were eroded and already at the cracking point.
Yes, we just need to go back to the good ol' days of corruption with decorum
(To be clear, I absolutely believe the scale has increased tremendously, but arguing about this is gonna be fruitless because it’s all subjective, there’s no hard numbers for any of it, and anything I can point out, you can just say “well that’s because they’re doing it in the open now, they were always doing it”, which is just as unfalsifiable. There’s basically no good outcome to debating this.)
I was just genuinely curious what somebody with your set of opinions has in mind for a time frame, because "1/100th the corruption" is too vague for me to quantify in my head.
As for arguing, I generally don't expect to change opinions with comments, especially those of whom I'm engaging with directly, so no worries there.
Since Trump. Entirely.
I generally think there’s actually not that much corruption in politics in the US. Mostly just insider trading, if you count by dollar amount. But I think generally there have been studies on the net worth of people before they are elected to public office versus after, and it’s within a few percentage points of the general population. There’s also the issue of lobbying firms hiring ex politicians but to be honest there’s something to be said for an ex-politician as a lobbyist: they have expertise and connections, they’re valuable to lobbying firms even if there’s no favors involved.
What we have now is:
- The president openly hocking a cryptocurrency and making billions off of it
- Taking money for early access to his posts on truth social, which is essentially how he communicates to the public. “Give me money and I’ll tell you first”
- Giving pardons to his supporters in a brazen and obvious way
- Taking donations from private donors to fund his pet projects like the White House ballroom
I could go on but like I said, I’m not really interested in the actual debate here because nobody’s gonna change their minds if they haven’t already.
in the past politicians would steal a little, and there was enough to go around.
a couple of hundred grand on a land deal was OK. but $250B in crypto is just too much.
America is truly lost when people wish their politicians were lying to them more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammany_Hall
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teapot_Dome_scandal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanborn_incident
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Ring
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_(1869)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%A9dit_Mobilier_scandal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_land_fraud_scandal
and that's just the 19th century, nevermind the 20th.
the whisky ring is definitely relevant to a discussion of today’s problems
this isn’t a ridiculous padded list of whataboutism
I'm sorry but your mindset is precisely what got Trump elected. The democrats abandoned the working people, propped up the military industrial complex even more, and enriched CEOs and bankers. Trump propaganda is not the reason people are not voting for them.
Just look at DSA. Why do you think so many both democrats and republicans end up supporting DSA candidates? Because they are the only mainstream candidates who are not 100% corrupt.
Mainstream democrats who actually know how to govern unfortunately don't have great rhetorical skills, easy slogans and sound bites, or the social media skills required to fight back against populist pundits. The mainstream media at one point also started going insanely harsh on normal democrats, while giving lay up interviews to trumpers, to avoid being accused of TDS.
Democrats fail to fight on both fronts because they often suck at being influencers, and are actually good at governing. They're boring government officials, nerds that try to actually tackle difficult problems in good faith, by taking all stakeholders into account, and finding feasible solutions.
Things are not simple. You're in a populist rabbit hole. It's easy to hate these suit wearing "corporate" dems if you don't actually appreciate the complexity of modern problems we're solving.
Some things are not simple, and i'm really not a DSA fan (they're too mild in many regards to solve the problems we're facing) so i'm not really in their rabbit hole. But DSA is not what i'd call populist; they're making realistic and mild social promises based on rational/scientific study of solutions (and seeing what worked in the USA in the past, and what works in other countries, such as 100% free healthcare).
You, on the other hand, seem to be down a rabbit hole where making billions of people suffer for your little privilege is just business as usual and asking questions is dangerous. Things are not simple, but they're definitely simpler if someone tries to actually solve them which no mainstream politician is actually doing. Here in France, it took dozens of thousands of workers with guns post-WWII to have free healthcare for all, and it's been working surprisingly well ever since (although to be fair, since absorbed and reformed by the State, much less so).
Page 1 (the very first words): "We found corruption to be widespread".
Page 10: "Commissioner Murphy in his early statements about corruption regularly included a pointed statement indicating that the corruption in the Department was limited to a few officers. On one occasion he went so far as to imply that there were no more than about 300 corrupt police officers in the entire Department. After Patrolman Phillips had completed two of his three days of testimony at our public hearings, Commissioner Murphy found it necessary to discount his testimony of widespread corruption, referring to him as a 'rogue cop.'"
"Smith defined it [the rotten apple doctrine] as standing for the proposition that 'police departments are essentially free of corruption except for the presence of a few corrupt officers who have managed to slip into police service and also into key assignments such as gambling investigations, despite rigorously applied screening procedures designed to keep them out.'"
"the Department now rejected this approach 'not just on principle, but because as a way of controlling corruption it had utterly failed.'"
Page 7: "The Commission examined and rejected the premises upon which the rotten-apple doctrine rested"
Page 11: ". . . they [the public] are sick of ‘bobbing for rotten apples"
Page 5: "investigations have occurred on the average of once in twenty years since before the turn of the century, and yet conditions exposed by one investigation seem substantially unchanged when the next one makes its report. This doesn’t mean that the police have a monopoly on corruption. On the contrary, in every area where police corruption exists it is paralleled by corruption in other agencies of government, in industry and labor, and in the professions."
Page 61: "The Commission’s findings were hardly new. As long ago as 1844, when the state legislature created the New York police force as the first municipal police department in the country, historians record an immediate problem"
(This was followed by a brief summary of every previous scandal and Commission dating back to 1844).
Corruption was not isolated incidents and unproven theories before, there have been corruption scandals throughout US history and even similarly flagrant actions earlier in the US (read about the "robber barons" of the industrial era, the early figures in long-lived political dynasties like the Bushes or Kennedys or the history of organized crime groups like the Irish or Italian Mobs). Political machines built on graft and money laundering were just thought to be something of history books because nobody pays attention when things are going well and the past century has been pretty great for US citizens overall. We've come to dominate the world militarily and economically, righted historical wrongs and corrected contradictions in our society, and achieved a level of global cultural and political influence that is truly unprecedented in history. Now, we are probably going to go through another few tumultuous round of reforms and changes just as previously happened.
You might have a strong argument but you seem to be afraid to name anyone or anything.
Read this and imagined corruption as non-linear. What before is “isolated incidents”, spreads like an SIRS (Susceptible → Infectious → Recovered → Susceptible) infection model.
The word you’re looking for is blatant.
It has been there over 50 years, with the ratchet tightening toward where we are now not each year - but mostly in the shadows, not in your face laughing.
Two things change each year: - how much the populace has been proven to “take”
- how much further the empire’s attention is spread out, leading to it not serving its own interests and citizens, aside from continuity of governance
Not everyone pointing out corruption is normalizing it, by the way. I’m personally looking forward to the conclusion of that.
What we had before is a normal amount of corruption. There's no such thing as having zero crime. Just like we can say that air travel is safe, despite there being incidents, we can say there is no corruption, despite there being incidents.
The talk of shadowy cabals and conspiracies are fashionable, but never proven.
Corruption that actually meaningfully hurts the country and the world at scale (in recent history) only started with this administration.
You're going down a populist rabbit hole, I've been there, it's not a good one.
These two things aren’t mutually exclusive.
Also, “normal” isn’t good. In fact, “normal” often seems like a horrible bar to aim for.
> Corruption that actually meaningfully hurts the country and the world at scale (in recent history) only started with this administration.
You don’t do the sort of systemic damage observant people have been pointing out for MANY administrations. Is this one bad? Yes.
But it’s really weird and incorrect (based on the definition of the words) to say the corruption only just recently became real / meaningful / harmful.
This is the first time in recent history we went from normal amount of incidents of corruption to straight up corrupt administration.
> “normal” often seems like a horrible bar to aim for.
If "normal" is a horrible bar to aim for, you should figure out what a world with zero crime would look like. I don't think you would ever want that world if you take time to think about it.
Yeah, I’m all set here. Talk weird circles with another user.
Your position seems to be that if it can be corruption, it is corruption.
Both your interpretation of my position, and your expression of your own, are indecipherable by any charitable standard.
Make more sense, sooner.
There exists unprosecuted corruption for sure, just like any other crime, but claiming that it’s somehow happening on an outsized scale vs expected normal baseline? Based on what? Listening to people pointing it out who have everything to gain from selling this narrative? Conjecture and vibes?
Again, things can be complicated, even bad. That doesn’t mean they’re corrupt until there’s credible evidence specifically of corruption taking place.
Because government and law enforcement should be held to a higher standard.
Here’s the closest and easiest reach to obvious regulatory capture from the other scumbag party:
“I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if we do prosecute—if we do bring a criminal charge—it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.”
Lots of Americans are aware of regulatory capture.
Yet: folks aren’t even discussing fixing it yet. Everyone is just pointing and mentioning, like a meteor is coming.
Where does this fall in your argument? This looks more than “complicated” - whatever that means (please do better).
This was a descriptive, not a prescriptive statement, of a real problem. He literally says that it is concerning that prosecuting large institutions can cause economic harm. He isn't saying they won't prosecute, he says it's difficult because of the downsides. Holder made a mistake of wheeling out a complex nuance to a public that isn't prepared to handle it.
I don't understand where is the evidence of malicious force trying to self-serve? Anything specific that points to corruption here? Is this like "yay, Holder gave us a loophole! We just need to build an incredibly large, successful business, and now it will be difficult for Holder to prosecute us, so we can finally start being corrupt"? Is that what you're saying?
What large successful business would want to squander it all on corruption on an off chance that the economic inconvenience would save them from prosecution? They are the most incentivized to identify and remove that sort of PR and legal cancer from their org.
That was the direct context of his statement.
> Is that what you're saying?
I’m saying you’re dangerously shit at reading between the lines if you don’t see the scheme when an ex-government person gets $400k+ per instance to show up and speak to financial institutions they/their administration didn’t prosecute out of profitability (or even majorly inconvenience their compliance department).
> What large successful business would want to squander it all on corruption on an off chance that the economic inconvenience would save them from prosecution? They are the most incentivized to identify and remove that sort of PR and legal cancer from their org
Plenty. All the way back before the East India Trading Company - work your way out from there.
Many business structures and owners only follow laws as is convenient - expected, if the only true consequence is a $$,$$$ speeding ticket and/or inconvenience ls that the ownership is insulated from.
He prosecuted them, and chose fines over criminal punishments. If this was due to maliciousness or corruption, I'm glad that whoever openly explained it all in this interview gave up his plot. /s
> I’m saying you’re dangerously shit at reading between the lines if you don’t see the scheme when an ex-government person gets $400k+ per instance to show up and speak to financial institutions they/their administration didn’t prosecute out of profitability (or even majorly inconvenience their compliance department).
I'm saying that you're so good at reading between the lines, that you no longer see the lines. You say all these random facts, but aren't connecting them to prove any corruption. If our judicial system worked the way you read between the lines, we'd all be in prison.
> All the way back before the East India Trading Company
What happened in 1600s has zero bearing on what happens today. Even the world in the 80s and 90s is no longer remotely the same.
> if the only true consequence is a $$,$$$ speeding ticket
Nobody ever actually knows what fine they will get. One day it's a fine, another day it's a judge making an example. No business exec in their sane mind would ever risk this. No lawyer in a sane mind would ever advise this. It's an incredibly uninformed, foolish position to only see a couple of perverse incentives, and be completely blind to the overwhelming amount of positive incentives.
So no actual prosecution, none worthy of considering prevention. Predominantly citizens being hit.
> You say all these random facts
Financial institutions paying out lottery jackpots to members of administrations that didn’t meaningfully harm them is far from random.
> What happened in 1600s has zero bearing on what happens today
Unchecked ignorance. Go about your business.
What relevant examples of getting away with corruption can we glean from a pre-enlightenment, pre-formal-police, pre-constitution, pre-checks-and-balances, pre-judiciary-act, pre-telegraph, pre-paper-trail, pre-free-journalism, pre-internet, pre-camera-phones, pre-surveillance, pre-data-centers, pre-whistleblowers, pre-structures of accountability world?
Corruption has gotten magnitudes harder to get away with (even since 00s), which is why history is irrelevant here. You would need something extraordinary, like becoming a president with criminal immunity and self-pardon powers, and getting an electoral majority to support you being openly corrupt.
Sorry - what are you implying I have to gain from “selling this narrative”?
Not zero, but relative near-zero, is possible through exactly two paths.
The one you’re validly warning against (surveillance state),
but also: tightly-knit communities with few-enough outside visitors.
Note that this can include neighborhoods in rural US or urban Italy.
Depending on how/what you calculate, cumulative taxation is between 50% to 70% of an average person's income. This is all that you need to know.
Corruption in the US been extensively documented and proven. The revolving door at regulatory bodies, dark money, gerrymandering, no-bid contracts, "kids for cash", the collusion at the DNC before the 2016 primary, unconstitutional domestic spying by the NSA (along with the directer James Clapper lying to congress under oath without consequence), the lies the George W. Bush administration sold the public to justify his wars (and just about everything else surrounding them including profiteering, the use of torture, and many other war crimes), the Whitewater scandal, etc.
You can go back in time as far as you like and you'll find things like The Teapot Dome scandal or The Whiskey Ring.
The kind of corruption we're seeing today is exceptional, but to pretend that anything before now was "isolated incidents" and "unproven theories" is beyond ridiculous. Things right now are bad enough that we don't have to blind ourselves to our own history in order to make it appear worse. It is worse. It doesn't change the reality that corruption has been an ongoing problem in the US and maybe if we'd been more aggressive about punishing it we wouldn't be here today. Sweeping any of it under the rug is the last thing we should be doing.
When you delete a customer database at work, it doesn't have to be because you're corrupt.
You're believing conjecture, because it makes you feel smarter, like you can see through the facade. The reality is that you're probably afraid to come off naive. We have to be stronger and fight this urge to cry wolf about everything, because sometimes real ones show up.
Charitably, you might be using a different definition of corruption than most of the world uses. Even if we limit ourselves to only a narrow definition of only political corruption, the abuse of government power for private gain, most of what I listed would still be (sometimes literally) textbook examples of it. The revolving door, dark money, "kids for cash", no-bid contracts, Teapot Dome, these are examples of how we've seen bribery and cronyism play out in the Untied States. Voter suppression for example is a form of electoral corruption. While you're welcome to play at semantics or choose your own definitions for what you feel is and isn't corruption, claiming that "none of the things" listed were "clearly corrupt" is simply false.
I think we'd agree that a worker deleting a database doesn't have to be corruption, but that also doesn't mean it can never be an act of corruption either. I'm not talking about conjecture, just documented history, some of it recent. There are people in prison right now for their roles in it and many others who should have been, or who should still be, locked up for it, but who have escaped justice because of corruption.
It's difficult to imagine what "real ones" would even look like to you personally, but be assured that to the rest of us the US has a very long and well documented history of real corruption.
Let's take revolving door. Who would you want to be in charge of regulating an industry, a person who knows it inside out or a newcomer who has no idea how anything works? How would the latter have any hope at being an effective regulator? You would never accept this kind of lack of experience anywhere else in life. But for some reason we're all used to pointing out revolving doors as some kind of gotcha, without giving it the basic level of thought.
Dark money sounds bad, but anonymity doesn't imply corruption. Money also isn't enough. Look at billionaires trying to run for president, and where they got. You'll also be hard pressed to find any example where a politician picks a stance that goes against their constituents' opinion, in favor of money. Usually money piggybacks on a public opinion that already supports them, or is largely indifferent. History has shown that pumping money can rarely reverse public opinion to a significant extent, but sometimes can dissuade a positive opinion into indifference. Even that, unclear if it’s still possible in today’s world.
Kids for cash — I didn't know what it was at first. Sure, that's straight corruption. A couple of judges committed crimes, got caught, and received prison sentences.
I could go down every example you made, but I hope the sample above illustrates what I mean. "Documented history" is conjecture until it's adjudicated. You're making a mistake of putting "documented history" (insinuations of corruption in dark money, revolving doors, voter suppression) in the same bucket as clear and adjudicated corruption (like kids for cash), and based on this mixed bucket of good and bad examples, make a conclusion that there's always been outsized corruption in US, compared to normal baseline. Your basis for that conclusion is flawed.
> because it’s a common feeling
What I hate about the top comment is it is a thought terminating cliche. It sure as hell makes a difference when 90% of people believe the government is corrupt vs 60% of people. It treats the situation as binary. What also matters, and isn't shown in the graphs, is how corrupt people believe the government is. But we can also make some pretty good inferences here that more people think corruption is higher. There's a big difference between a leaky bucket with a few small holes and the bucket having such large holes that it's more accurate to call it a pipe.
> It’s to say that they’re all the same.
So I'm going to leave everyone with this classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLNhPMQnWu4
Well, maybe a bit less than half these days.
I simply do not understand American politics.
Modern usage is not about fruit companies.
It’s really embarrassing
Yeah, that's not what an scapegoat is.
It's easier to start looking the other way when bullets start flying.
Having said that, I'm not saying Trump was a saint, but it seems this board forgets we just had Obama and Biden running their corruption rings for 2 decades too...
Mortal enemy of the US to closest friend in 2 weeks.
You are in good company with most Americans in that regard.
It seems like the whole "we just blame the other side for everything we want to do, and then use that as justification when we actually do it" strategy must be well orchestrated, but the voters themselves legitimately seem to believe it is actually how things work. I am darkly impressed at the skillful manipulation.
Consicely put, and not nearly present enough in contemporary discourse.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/zsnr8q/year_of_abo...
The US wasn't much of an outlier.
As a general rule, anyone who tries to use slavery as a skeleton key to understand US politics is most likely an ideologue with an agenda. Sane people don't propose struggle sessions for events which happened 100+ years ago when everyone involved is long dead. You wouldn't point to a gigantic statue of Genghis Khan to explain what's wrong with modern Mongolia.
I don't think this is a slavery thing. Trump just sucks.
Slavery ended in 1865. That's 161 years ago. So maybe there are a few modern 80-year-olds who interacted with 80-year-old former slaves when the modern 80-year-olds were infants. Those 80-year-old former slaves would themselves have no memory of slavery since it would've ended before they could form memories. And the modern 80-year-olds would have no memory of the interaction, since they themselves were infants when the interaction happened.
In other words: There aren't very many of these people, and it's unclear if most of them would count.
You know something which happened more recently in the US than slavery? Prohibition. A trendy, self-righteous moral crusade which didn't accomplish what it set out to achieve, and ended up creating a bunch of problems instead.
I think Prohibition is a pretty good template for understanding the form and tendencies of modern left-wing activist movements. But--at least reducing alcoholism was a good cause that we had a shot at doing something about! Short of inventing a time machine, crusading against slavery from centuries ago seems rather pointless. That's not a problem for activists whose primary goal is to be trendy and self-righteous, of course.
That's not long enough ago to call it ancient history.
Either George, who enslaved her mother, or his brother, Dr. Fabius Haywood, who enslaved her older brothers, Rufus and Andrew,[3] was probably Anna's father
Moreover, she was still a slave until she was six and served her masters as a domestic house servant. When you were six you were probably being educated to read and write and do math.
You guys are so quick with your “well ackshually” that you’re missing the point which is very simple and has been restated by other posters.
I don't know anyone that has spoken to a former slave.
And most people of color in the US's ancestors were not slaves in the US south. They came as immigrants from other countries.
The issue is not slavery. It might be racism. But it is not "I can't have slaves anymore"
That certainly means it's recent to me. My own parents (both still alive) grew up while "separate but equal" was still law of the land.
So, yes, it's definitely racism. Or shall we say, the lasting imprint of slavery and the Confederate ideology more generally. Reconstruction failed and therefore allowed the Confederate ideology to persist for 100 years of Jim Crow and right on into today.
Slavery has existed as far back as history. The idea that people are created equal, and are equal under the law, is very, very new, and that idea has resulted in a great many positive things happening.
A good general wouldn't voluntarily shift the battleground to a region where their troops are weak. Political persuasion is no different. The Democratic Party keeps losing because they cling to unpopular positions on cultural issues. If Trump is as bad as you say, prove it to me by showing willingness to strategically cede ground on a few issues in order to win more voters.
What I do see is media and politicians on the Right characterizing extreme positions held by a minority of folks on the far Left as though they are adopted by the entire Left, and that weak uncritical minds on the Right believe that nonsense. Rush Limbaugh pioneered this technique to profit himself, and Trump gave him a fucking Presidential Medal of Freedom in his first term.
Maybe I should work harder to make my actual views clear. I added a few sentences to the end of my original comment in this thread: "I don't think this is a slavery thing. Trump just sucks." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49572347
Besides all the YouTube videos, X posts, the addition of two new right-wing TV networks (OANN and NEWSMAX), “Truth” Social, WSJ, NY Post, etc.? Silence is a myth perpetuated by the right (“people are trying to suppress the truth and your 1A rights!”) to build a following when in fact opposition voices are plentiful.
The Republican propaganda machine will always be ready to make any cultural issue the dems hold 'unpopular'. They turn anything and everything into a culture war, and if nothing exists, they are more than happy to manufacture it.
Observe how they turned their own vaccine into a cultural issue.
>We're still fighting the remnants of the confederacy. Germany and Japan in particular purged most of those elements from their society. Here we built statues to the evil fucks
That is a historical fact which has important explanatory power. It may not directly be the best basis for public Democratic platform, which most people probably agree with. The core manifestation is in our institutions, and that's what we need to fix. I agree with you that framing it through the lens of corruption is the best overt political strategy.
I get the sense that many in this thread simply have an un-quenched lust for re-education camps. Probably under Stalin they'd be mumbling about dastardly capitalist spies and saboteurs.
This sounds like a thinly-veiled argument to keep them up. But why should we keep them up? In what universe does it make sense to honor the losers of a failed coup attempt against our nation by embodying them in statutes?
The reason many continue to pursue this is because of the surprising number of people who want to maintain them. It's not a "crusade against windmills," it's a crusade against people who want to honor the enemies of our nation. It's as understandable as being upset that a group of people would want to maintain an Osama bin Laden statue in the middle of Manhattan.
Taking statues down may not change much in and of itself, but it's a small piece of the bigger puzzle.
> I get the sense that many in this thread simply have an un-quenched lust for re-education camps.
Well that escalated quickly.
...
Most countries’ legal systems, however, carve out an exception for prisoner-workers, permitting the state to require them to work—sometimes for no pay, but typically for very low rates of pay.
There are, even so, multiple potential benefits to prison work. For example, ICPR’s recent research indicated that prisoners who could not work (when prison regimes around the world were restricted during the COVID-19 pandemic) reported many negative consequences, including to their mental and physical wellbeing. At the minimum, work may mitigate some harmful impacts of imprisonment. At best, it may increase prisoners’ prospects of successful reintegration into society, potentially also benefitting society by reducing recidivism."
https://www.prisonstudies.org/sites/default/files/publicatio...
(emphasis mine)
Here's a photo from a Brazilian prison from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labour#/media/File:Inmat...
The question is whether the prisons in Brazil are private, and are allowed to sell prison labor FOR A PROFIT, incentivizing both greater incarceration rates, and disincentivizing release.
The answer is no, I’m not aware of ANY other country that allows a private organization to profit off the labor if people imprisoned by the state. At least not any country we would consider 1st world.
It’s absolutely absurd to suggest the current situation is beneficial to anyone but the ruling class and anyone claiming otherwise has never been to prison, never had a relative or friend who has been to prison, or is literally a psychopath who lacks basic human empathy.
Your comment stated: "And does Brazil have their own 13th amendment that allows them to use prison labor as their modern slave workforce?"
The article I linked states: "Most countries’ legal systems, however, carve out an exception for prisoner-workers, permitting the state to require them to work..."
So my quote directly answers your original concern.
Your new concern is about private prisons. Here's a new quote from the article which addresses your new concern:
"Involvement by non-public entities in prison work can take many forms. In most countries including all three of Brazil, the United Kingdom, and the United States, for-profit companies operate entire prisons (or provide services within prisons) under government contract. Similarly, the operators of both public and private prisons in all three countries contract with buyers, equipping prison workshops and using prisoner labour to produce goods and services which go on to be sold beyond the prison."
(p. 15, emphasis mine)
So no, the US system doesn't seem to be especially unusual, according to this article.
You're welcome to decry this practice as inhumane, btw. I just don't think it is some sort of skeleton key which will help us understand every aspect of US politics.
Rich from someone that brought up slavery from nowhere.
The norm now is to require a wage for mandatory labor, but of course often it's just a pittance. (Only 6 US states have uncompensated labor.) But even when you require minimum wage, many criminals owe restitution, so it could be and is taken away again.
Many US states have penal labor systems just like in Europe, that is nominally opt out, mandatory wages, etc, but at the end of the day it's always open to accusations of coercion and claims of "slavery".
The rhetoric around the 13th Amendment is exactly why we're in the situation we are now politically. Everything is equivocated to maximize rhetorical impact. Every unethical thing a politician does is "corruption", so when you get open and egregious corruption as with Trump, people can't discriminate and assume it's all the same.
Was penal labor abused to roll back the clock on abolition? Yes. Is penal labor abused today? Yes. But calling it slavery, drawing parallels to chattel slavery, is just irresponsible.
> Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
The 13th amendment specifically mentions penal labor as an exempt form of slavery.
Take your criticism to the authors of the 13th amendment, not the people who bothered to read it.
So do you agree or not agree that mandatory penal slavery is an extension of 19th century and earlier American slavery. Because that's what the movement and rhetoric are saying. And removing the Exception Clause won't change the rhetoric, because the entire point is to argue "things haven't changed".
It's the same rhetoric that equivocates "wage slavery". All those things can, of course, fall under a literal definition of slavery. Just like all forms of misbehavior by politicians can be called corruption. We can say, well, Trump isn't doing anything every other politician hasn't done. Which can be literally true. But I choose not to play semantic games like that, because those semantic games are at least as likely to be used to excuse abuses as they are to prevent them. If you want reform, pursue reform. Note that many states have removed their state constitutional Exceptions Clauses which by itself resulted in zero changes to the status quo, because when you play semantic games there's always room to redefine things on-the-fly, or to find another semantic loophole. Every court knew what the Exceptions Clause actual, contextual meaning was, and can just as well redefine slavery or non-slavery to exclude or include penal labor. Semantic games don't change the real world, except insofar as they promote cynicism, confusion, and disengagement from substantive issues.
I agree that mandatory penal slavery (as practiced in US prisons in the 21st century) is an extension of 19th century and earlier American slavery.
I suppose you could question their sanity, but the point stands - history has a short memory, and a few generations are nothing.
Especially when the after-effects of slavery, including segregation, disenfranchisement through gerrymandering and for-profit imprisonment, and other forms of continuing violence, are still live issues today.
I think the obvious answer here, insofar as that's true, is that historical continuity is simply not as strong as you are assuming. I mean you've basically admitted it yourself. In 1860 would you vote for the Democrats or the Republicans?
As for the Genghis Khan comparison, I may have made an error. We may just be dealing with severe cognitive limitations here.
Do you need me to spoonfeed you about where you can find them? Or do you not actually have the intellectual capacity to be able to use a search engine, or a chatbot?
Your replies indicate your disdain for appeals to the history of American slavery in political discussions, yet you were the one who brought it into the conversation, diverting the thread by initially straw-manning the parents view.
They are always the first to cast someone as an "other" and scapegoat for all of their problems. You're the type of person to hear "Haitians are eating their cats and dogs!" or "Mexico is sending us rapists and murders" and say "That guy has a good point!". It's pretty fucking gross and you're a clown at best for defending them.
No kidding amigo.
There have been some changes in alignment over the years, but every Republican I've every talked to remains proud of their historic roles above.
The PRC and North Korea still use slave labour as do some other countries. The Soviet Union had slavery with the Gulag system during the 20th century, and other places such as East Germany had some within living memory.
* * *
Trump outperformed with black people relative to Romney and has appointed black people to his cabinet.
>problems going on to the present day
Often more noise than substance, e.g. the odds of a black man being unarmed and killed by cops in the US are something like one in a million annually.
>The white vote in the US was a solid majority for Democrats before the Civil Rights Act and is now a solid Republican majority.
Ethnic bloc voting is not at all unusual by international standards. I might as well interpret black loyalty to the Democrats as racism against white people.
>Those who "deserve it" are usually not white.
Trump has had many many "beefs" with white people such as Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Mike Pence, James Comey, Mark Milley, Anthony Fauci, Megyn Kelly, Joe Scarborough, Rosie O'Donnell, etc.
What frustrates me is when activists take an issue which should be a winner ("Trump is corrupt, let's do something about government corruption, all Americans can unite around this") and immediately pivot to handwavey, divisive race-baiting and talking about how utterly depraved conservatives supposedly are. Sometimes it seems like you guys are determined to lose.
For a trace of the thread directly from the civil war to the current Supreme Court, check out this podcast episode:
I know you think you're being cute but some of us had grandparents that had to flee that shit and do not find quite so hilarious as you and your mates.
About a quarter of a million, hardly the biggest .. and importantly this was at the request of the Mexican Government who wanted many of the Mexican workers who entered the USofA to be returned to work in Mexico.
Despite the derogatory name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wetback was a attempt to appease the Mexican Government and get their continued support to provide "legal" Mexican labour to the USofA.
A few examples of prominent Nazi officials who worked in West Germany: Reinhard Gehlen, Albert Schnez, Adolf Heusinger (Inspector General of the West German Army), Hans Speidel (major NATO commander), Johannes Steinhoff (Chairman of the NATO Military Committee from 1971–1974), Johann von Kielmansegg (Commander in Chief of Allied Forces Central Europe), Ernst Ferber, Karl Schnell, Franz Joseph Schulze, Ferdinand von Senger und Etterlin etc.
“Researchers found that some 77 percent of senior officials in the [West German] Justice Ministry had once identified as Nazis, a portion higher than during the Third Reich, the period between 1933 and 1945 when Adolf Hitler controlled Germany, and much higher than researchers expected. The group included Nazi-era prosecutor Eduard Dreher, a man who sought the death penalty for petty criminals, and Max Merten, who played a role in deporting Jews from Greece.” – 2016 Christian Science Monitor Study
East Germany did purge most of its Nazi elements, but became a dictatorship in its own right. When Germany reunited, there was a purge of East German judges but a number of people involved in the old system continued in the new Germany. (Even Angela Merkel who had a significant position in the FJD.)
Most of former Soviet Union made a limited attempts to remove Communist era officials. Some of those responsible for Stalin era atrocities died in their beds. Russia is still full of them, and age, not officialdom . Even people like Valentina Tereshkova the former cosmonaut. PR China has never purged itself fully of Maoism, and Chairman Mao's picture still pops up everywhere despite being arguably the biggest mass murderer in history.
And its clearly been building for a while. Trump and Obama are about as opposite as possible, but they both won by campaigning on "change".
This is true in most political systems. Its how most revolutions start. The commoner is always screwed but they still support them.
I dont think america is all that exceptional. All sides just see it through their filter bubble and miss the forest for the trees.
(Well I can believe it, it shows a limitation of rational thought and second order effects, which our electoral system exploits. And some of them are outright "accelerationists" which is a looney strategy itself.)
Are they though? Both serve the same master.
I ask because I've known people who were shocked at what took place 2021-01-06 but who proudly voted to re-elect Trump.
Today isn't much different: talk to a conservative voter who complains about the tariffs, Iran war, etc. and ask them whether it would be enough for them to vote Democrat, and the answer is near universally no. Lots of people have performative outrage because they're supposed to be outraged at what's going on, but the truth is that there's no line the Republican party can cross which would make them switch votes. Exceptions to this rule are still few and far between as far as I can gather.
Most politics is sold as tribal. "Our leader" and "Our team" are not the same thing. If "Our leader" is a disappointment, "Our team" can still be the good guys who need to do some house clearing, introduce some fresh blood, and all will be well again, etc.
Reality in the US is most politics is billionaire-funded. Trump didn't just happen, and he certainly didn't pull himself into the top job through his own efforts. He was groomed for decades before being crowned.
That's the level of corruption most of the population never sees. It's why the establishment is so scared of wildcard politicians and the DSA as a movement - both threaten to snip the strings of corporate funding.
As long as those strings are there, what happens in the media is kayfabe. The real decisions are made elsewhere, and the big tentpole events - 9/11 and its aftermath, the various Middle Eastern wars, financial crashes and bailouts - are the special menu the rich get to feed off, and the public never sees in advance, never mind votes on.
Do I think he will run? I don't know - he said he wants to, regardless of constitution, and I think he would love the vanity of it if he was sure to win. They've done a lot of work to be able to suppress votes, throw out mail in votes, and declare the election invalid, plus the legislature seems inexplicably spineless, so I don't know if he would run again or not. Anything but release the epstein files I guess?
We just don’t see the slavery because we are the best compensated slaves. But most of us want to become masters, don’t we. “Entrepreneurs“, right? So at some level we know that that is the system we live in. And we are at the top of the bottom rung of that ladder. But it is still the bottom rung. And it is still a ladder.
> 35% approve, 61% disapprove, 5% not sure
https://www.economist.com/interactive/trump-approval-tracker
And Congress as a whole...
> The approval rating for the U.S. Congress stands at 10%, while disapproval has climbed to 86%, according to data from Gallup. [1]
So not sure what this is really telling us?
[0]: https://fiftyplusone.news/polls/favorability/democratic-part... [1]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/708722/disapproval-congress-tie...
Diffuse organizations like "Congress" or "the party" aren't what you're voting for. Unfortunately Congress really does take it on the chin for the actions of the President in midterms, because that's very recognizable and personalized, and partisan votes (or just staying home) are the only lever people have to express displeasure.
I honestly think most Congress people want to do good for the country. But the system has become totally dysfunctional making it basically impossible to really work on issues. The influence of money is just too much. To me this goes hand in hand with the rising inequality that gives a few people at the top outsized influence. Super PACs don't even have to deploy their money anymore. The simple threat is already enough to bring most Congress people in line if they want to keep their job.
That seems wildly unlikely. Wouldn't there be evidence for it by now? Over the last decades there have been scant murmurs of the US congress sitting down and taking a serious look at what might be good for a country. I'm happy to say that the root cause is a voting public in the US (everywhere, really) rewarding unprincipled liars and punishing principled politicians. But the outcome is that the US Congress is full of unprincipled liars who have little regard for the good of the country, because that would be a principle that gets in the way of political expediency.
The system isn't some abstract concept foisted upon them from on high. They control it. There are some very high-level constraints on them that are all-weather good ideas and apart from that it is a free-for-all. The reason the system is dysfunctional is because that suits the congresspeople.
They may like some republican stances (say, reduced regulations and welfare spending), but despise others (Trump, wars, anti-renewable). Meanwhile they might like some democrat stances (Inclusivity, environment), but not others (high spending, rent controls, etc).
So you're stuck between a rock and a hard place where there's no good way to express your desires. I can totally understand not wanting to vote in such an environment, and disliking the government no matter what. You can't get your specific views represented because everything has been collapsed into two broad camps that average out - and as lots of research shows, no one is truly average.
No private meetings either. I have repeatedly called both his local office and his DC office. If I have a donation, a staffer will meet with me.
His philosophy is simple "You love Donald, I love Donald". It is the focus of the mailers that are sent out every quarter.
This elections democrat has no polling. The prediction markets give her an 8% chance of winning.
By the way two important social media strategies whether on TV or in text forums are,
1) appear unflappable
2) never deviate from the talking points
Read (1) and (2) with an implied parenthetical phrase: "when in public"
These are effective because the other side usually settles for small wins of seeing their counterpart flinch, feel lost or embarrassed i.e. to win in a fleeting way. Therefore, to the degree you can keep a straight face the better you deflect these small wins ... in public.
It has a strong secondary benefit of removing from context common sense, consistency i.e. the realm of cause/effect, policy where reality is more closely aligned. And when that goes out the window, your runway to BS is 10x longer.
Ejecting family wrongly arrested, misidentified, or those have followed the law (meager and crappy as it is sometimes), or who are denied due process is not unalloyed win in private people claim in public. Even if the guy is here is illegal and should be removed ... there's kids, money, and other dependencies involved. It's not the clean win people say.
What goes on off camera and off the HTML page is a whole other reality.
Here's an anecdote I heard personally: a guy I know went to Mar a Largo for a business function not related to Trump, but as a club house selling its meeting rooms and menu for revenue. My buddy is a non-white guy of considerable wealth, business success, and connections. This guy allegedly ran into Harris Faulkner (FOX news host) . During chit-chat she said she told this guy she does not associate with everything she says on camera. She continued to explain by saying she presents a viewpoint her employer pays her to convey.
"ICE deported my wife. She was legal and was following the rules. I still love my Donald and will vote for him again"
I also gotta wonder what percentage of this group is amplified beyond reality by bot armies and hostile foreign actors. There can't really be that many people so completely detached from reality, can there?
isn't really the crux of the problem with modern day USofA, more and more people are completely attached to their algo tuned bubble, curated for them by the data scientists of <insert techno silo here>.
It's not just the hostile bot armies of foreign actors tugging on the strings of perception, the distortion is coming from inside the borders.
> ... the distortion is coming from inside the borders.
Yeah, this really does contribute significantly to the whole problem. It's all kinda terrifying really. Like living in a waking nightmare.
Social media destroyed local media and turned to making money instead of informing the populace.
Let's have another lawsuit about Facebook killing our democracy.
In Texas, it is widely known that the Trump family are experts in crypto finance, and worthy of the gains they have made. (also that sharia law is widely practiced)
When people that aren't highly educated have no source of accurate current events, they have a warped view of reality.
Now, if you had some grand master plan to use some part of the federal government to stomp some people in some state for doing it wrong this is probably bad for you. But on a 30-40yr timeline it'll probably just mean a cycle of the feds doing less and the states doing more and the diversity that comes with that.
Like we'll all screech about the EPA revoking this or the DOT ceasing to do that but whatever those policies are, if people want them they will be picked up by the states. In most cases it'll probably be 40-something states continuing to do whatever it was or 40-something states saying that was stupid all along and stopping immediately.
Basically the sky isn't falling.
It also hurts businesses when they suddenly find themselves forced to follow an inconsistent/conflicting patchwork of state laws instead of a single federal law.
That said, it's still encouraging to see states picking up the slack and passing laws to protect their residents, even though I can't help but feel bad for people who become stuck in states where the government doesn't care about them. I hope that people will be begin to flee states where the government chooses to put corporate profits above the well-being of the public or wants to strip them of their rights, but realistically there will be many people who can't afford to move or who feel compelled to stay because of ties to their friends, family, and community.
The environment in the US is very diverse so why is it federally regulated to the degree it is?
Not having to put up with rules that make sense in the arid plains or western deserts is gonna be a huge boon to everyone east of the Mississippi.
The "consistency" argument is like 99% red herring. There's already a huge patchwork because the way federal agencies work is the states do most of the enforcing so you have 50 states worth of precedents and political whims to keep track of. If we're gonna suffer that patchwork it should at least work for the state as they want it rather than just be various flavors of spin on federal rules nobody fully agrees with.
You can run this sort of exercise with just about every federal agency. Stuff like the FRA, DOT and other things where the literal subject matter is flagrantly interstate are where this sort of thing is least true.
Because there’s relatively little need for diversity. Dumping toxic waste into river systems is as bad in Oregon as it is in Florida. Things that genuinely need local management (e.g. wildlife) can be managed locally.
This is where most of the dysfunction comes from, not the classification of what is or isn't a pollutant. Because this is how you get some water rich municipality in the southeast having to adopt stupid rules they don't even want based on some guidelines that were written to be compatible with the water poor west.
There'd be a ton less people who are categorically opposed to the federal agencies if not for this sort of thing. And it goes for most agencies, not just the EPA.
Like for example aquifer depletion is a serious thing in the southwest. It's borderline irrelevant in the northeast which is only getting wetter with climate change anyway.
So you split the difference when you write the federal rules and the result is insufficient for the southwest and their governments have to do a bunch of BS rule stretching crap to take it further and a nuisance in the northeast where their governments have to do a bunch of the same BS in the other direction to lighten it up.
Why not just let these states write their own laws that work for them. Sure you'll probably get one or two screw ups but most states will probably be better served.
There's been studies of healthcare administration, education, and other areas of devolution in UK and Spain. There are benefits, but there are also costs and outcomes can get worse despite the benefits.
But it still left a deep mark on people - people who grew up under the old regime still considered it normal to bring gifts (usually alcohol in some form) when visiting doctors - the idea being it would be rude not to!
This is having real consequences - I saw an interview with a doctor, where he showed the reports a big closet, full of alcohol from these gifts.
That was from just the last week. He also mentions colleagues with tendencies for alcoholism dying from this...
Of course the supporters of one particular political party is much more better at gymnastics of the mental kind than the other side. Having no spine makes it quite easier...
Thats why people give millions to the clintons for haiti and the Haitians never see a single penny. The corrupt take that tax money and give it to their friends who give it to charities which are owned and operated by their friends who then donate that money to campaigns or other charities who do the same thing.
The republicans are just as corrupt but their power comes from the dems pissing people off so instead they vote against the dems but the reps are the only other option so the reps do the exact same thing as the dems and steal tax payer money and set up laws that make it more difficult for small business to compete with government sponsored monopolies. The left and right parties are like a left and right hand they wont get in each others way or fight each other they cooperate to screw the american people over and the stupid americans keep pretending they have a choice between the left slap or the right slap. The only way to take control of the country is to root out the corruption but the corruption is perpetuated by party politics and stupid americans are more loyal to their stupid corrupt parties than their nation or neighbors.
It's way more comforting to believe that Bill Clinton's buddies (or whoever) got rich selling industrial America overseas to the cheers of the progressives who thought all that stuff was dirty any way because at least that way it looks sane and planned and rational, albeit selfish, than it was done out of ignorance or malice.
And once enough people believe in the corruption, it manifests itself because it's perceived as how things are.
What if they weren't short-sighted and not hostile? Look at Germany, which did not do this and instead kept strong provisions in favor of organized labor and protecting their domestic industry from foreign entrants.
They can't keep doing it anymore. That would have been our future. But we pivoted to high skilled services and it has served us immensely better than if we had tried to defeat other powers in industrial and manufacturing where they had a clear advantage we didn't, in terms of cost.
This also ignores that the US is now having serious trouble supplying its own military and tech sector due to the same deindustrialization! It also basically created its most formidable geopolitical competitor through this process.
Sure the US is having trouble with that. But the easy fix to that was to not start unnecessary wars
I think they have discovered that what the public thinks simply no longer tracks what they actually do: "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters“
... only because the elections aren't completely rigged yet and they still need some votes to cling to the power.
How do the democrats secure an election? Do you just make sure you stuff the box with more mail in ballots than the other guy? You already made it illegal to show id when casting a ballot so if the republicans want to play the same game as the democrats how do you stop em? Do you just claim that its okay when we do it?
You need to cite some actual sources behind the question loaded in your comment.
1. https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/imo/media/do...
2. https://statesuniteddemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01...
3. https://www.snopes.com/collections/mail-in-ballots-rumors-co...
Democrats want all legitimate ballots counted and to make it easier to vote in person.
Only one party cares about defending democracy.
My hope is we will, one day, have an administration that roots it out using modern fraud detection, gets rid of waste, shuts down non-profits that funnel monies to their founders (anything where "overheard" is over 50%), stops insider trading amongst politicians and government workers, but I don't see them voting against their greed.
[1]https://ballotpedia.org/Changes_in_Net_Worth_of_U.S._Senator...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_allegations_during_...
Similar to the "Death of a Euphemism" [0], where some politicians decide they don't have to cloak their proposal in the trappings of reasonability any more.
I highly recommend the whole series, as it has renewed relevance today.
At some point you realize there is a game that you were never playing and it becomes a bipartisan issue.
For evidence, refer to TFA.
I read the article too, in what sane world is it okay if 70% of citizens thought their governments + corporations are corrupt over a 20 year time span here. Society apparently has get quite bad for the last 20% to realize the state of things.
The only thing I got out of this article is that both parties + the F500 need to be destroyed.
If you think I (or virtually anyone else) am a fan of the two-party system, you probably aren't paying very close attention to... anything.
Things can be varying levels of imperfect. Things can be imperfect and acceptable, imperfect and bad, or imperfect and extremely extremely bad. It's not a sign of intelligence not to be able to discern between them.
I don't know, if we'd had an overwhelmingly Democrat-dominated government, we'd have comprehensive bans on government insider trading and we'd correct the bad ruling in Citizens United. Corporatism is definitely a bipartisan issue, but at least Democrats recognize it as a problem, while to Republicans it's a feature. Not everything in politics is symmetrical, and misguided nihilism is actually how we got where we are. Turns out the road to hell is paved with "it's both sides."
We had two years under Biden with Democrat control of the House and the Senate. They passed no legislation to ban insider trading.
It probably didn’t help that the poster octogenarian for insider trading was Speaker of the House
> and we'd correct the bad ruling in Citizens United.
CU was absolutely the correct ruling as it just means I can take money from wherever I’ve earned it and spend it on publicizing my message.
Prior to that you had to buy a media company to have the same effect. It was perfectly fine for Fox News or The NY Times to focus articles and segments on what they deem newsworthy to push their narrative. But if I made my money selling widgets, I couldn’t spend it the same way.
It’s a perfectly reasonable ruling.
> Corporatism is definitely a bipartisan issue, but at least Democrats recognize it as a problem, while to Republicans it's a feature.
The same people probably complain the Senate is an antiquated body that should not exist because mob rule is the only true voice of the people.
Nobody has controlled the Senate since ‘09. The veneer of bipartisanship created by the filibuster meant that Congress has done nothing since ‘09 (outside of a few stimulus bills and the Green New Deal which was probably a good bill in the long run hampered by bureaucracy). It turns out that’s great for the party that wants to do nothing, and really bad for the party that wants to do something.
You could say that Dems should’ve killed the filibuster. But there was no appetite for it until Trump 2 because things weren’t going great but they weren’t going belly up
Are you literally a corporation? If not, you should perhaps read the decision.
Going back to my original example, why is it okay for a media company to use their platform and resources to promote whatever speech they want promoted, but I can’t use money I made selling hot dogs to do the same?
The only way to make the playing field fair is to allow everybody to take part. Otherwise you have a handful of media companies with outsized control of indirect messaging.
It is not. That's one aspect, but another major aspect is that those individuals pooling their resources are not liable for the corporation's actions. This immunity from liability for their collective responsibility has a price, and part of that price is that the corporation should not be used in an attempt to manipulate elected officials. Corporations are not people for the same reason that you are not a blood cell. The whole is not only greater than the sum of the parts, it is materially different.
>The only way to make the playing field fair is to allow everybody to take part.
This is one solution, I'm not sure it is truly the only solution.
Why do we treat media companies differently? Maybe we shouldn't. Newspapers traditionally had political coverage, and had no restrictions on political commentary. As a result, their owners wielded enormous political power. Then radio and TV arrived on the scene, and had to abide by the "equal time" rule due to their government-granted broadcast licenses. The internet upended all that. We should look for a good answer, not just an expedient one.
Destruction is easy, as we are all witnessing.
Making things better is hard. It takes commitment to incremental change, often having to overcome setbacks, and accepting that the product of democracy is inherently nonlinear.
Democracy also demands that its participants understand that most of the time what each individual wants to be, will not be exactly as they envision, since that would be autocracy.
Destruction is totally fine of useless institutions. Especially those that are openly antagonistic and profit from killing Americans. US institutions are designed to impede progress and stop actual democratic movements.
No one was ever asked the public what they thought when they shoved neoliberalism down our throats. Yet that system reigns supreme and has created a hellscape where people are openly ignoring their biological imperative because their lives are so miserable (a behavior that's also found in animals at zoos).
None of what you are describing has any real momentum behind it and for how many decades will you let politicians fails you until you do something in response?
Like bro, the democratic party isn't an opposition party. There is a reason why the party has majority unfavorability rating [1] throughout Trump's entire second term. How do you square this?
This is a fucking terrible sign and it's why progressive candidates have seen a massive insurgency this cycle and why the corporate do-nothing dems are so scared shitless that they might have to actually answer why they are okay with genocide + corporate welfare programs while doing nothing to help people materially.
You say no one is excusing them, then spend your entire comment excusing them.
What do you actually do politically?
[1] https://fiftyplusone.news/polls/favorability/democratic-part...
But we didn’t have to vote DJT into office as a counteracting force. Whether every decision is bad or not, not my point. It just seemed obvious that he wasn’t the right guy.
Some people can’t vote against their party. Some people believe write in is the move.
If you want to protest, please do it. But throwing away your vote is not a protest, it’s a method of ceding a small amount of power.
I've never written a name not on the ballot but wonder sorts of feelings arise afterwards. Is it "Good, I did the right thing"?
There is some kernel of value to seeking out information from diverse sources. But groups like Ground News pervert that to mean that the left and right are on equally good terms with fact and reality (nevermind that collapsing politics and news media down to left and right is balderdash)
Notably, like another allegedly unbiased news source (RealClearPolitics and related), Ground News is run by conservatives. They know precisely how it works and are taking advantage of sensible people who think they must be getting biased news and want more exposure to the other side, with the intention of ratcheting the Overton window ever more to the right.
That does not necessarily imply giving equal airtime or equal legitimacy to the different sides at all.
Eh, to the extent that I care about it being "run by conservatives" it's only in whether it creates a distorted perception of reality. As someone with a very varied media diet I don't really find them to be distortive, so I don't really care whether the founders are conservative or not.
I don’t think the vibes argument there is incorrect, Dems have failed to deliver for a long time, but the claims themselves really just make a conspiracy out of the shitty electoral situation Dems / progressives have been in since the creation of the senate 250 odd years ago.
I honestly don't understand your other question, you can watch any primary challenge race across the country and you'll see these dynamics play out. We're also dealing with cumulative effects that have taken place over decades (NAFTA is still impactful in many areas that if you run as D these districts you are guaranteed to lose).
If you're from a certain region and want specific examples LMK.
Like this is a thread about corruption but I guess if you give a shitty corporate veneer it's suddenly. If you're older than 40 you saw the democratic party implement NAFTA, cut welfare programs, and bail out banks; apparently these three major policy pillars aren't related to people's feelings on corruption.
Totally independent, they're just totally only saying Trump + republicans are corrupt not like the entire system that compromises two parties both of which are in bed with corporations and voters have a lived history reflecting just this.
Next thing you're going to tell me is that the Gaza Genocide played no role in Harris losing '24 either.
You make it sound like he's the one calling this out, "Drain the swamp" style, when instead he's the one elevating it to the next level. A month ago he sat for a TV interview in the White House, and he said, verbatim, "My children are insider trading all the time". And it was so on-brand for Trump's administration that it barely moved the needle.
Barron is an unemployed college drop out who gained $150M in net worth in a year. Donald Jr and Eric start companies or get paid millions for board seats that get billions in government contracts within days of their forming/joining.
You, unable to form more than three words about all of this, but able to go on a vague rant about how its the Democrats we should really be angry at. Corruption is endemic. It's never been as brazen, and as much, as now.
https://theintercept.com/2026/07/13/gillibrand-crypto-trump-...
Like this plays into the record "high" perception of corruption. (also you know that the democratic has had majority unfavorable ratings throughout the Trump administration [1], a major blight and a poor sign that the opposition party is in fact not unified in opposition)
I do find the person that makes your comments amusing. Mostly the types that do zero organizing, never volunteered for a political campaign, have never canvassed in their life, don't attend party meetings, aren't part of any state committees across the US, but all seem to exactly know what's wrong with the voters and apparently you aren't allowed to criticize a party for reasons that allude me.
Perfectly capable to form plenty of words just fine. I'm a democratic party operative that has mostly grown to hate the party more as the years go by, luckily my sentiment is hardly unique (way more common than back in 2016).
What do you exactly do to help combat this situation? I rather converse with people that are engaged and not just consumers of advocacy.
[1] https://theintercept.com/2026/07/13/gillibrand-crypto-trump-...
Is that what's happening here?
But in terms of the letter of the law unfortunately he couldn’t be held accountable for much of it because it was legal! The US legal system has largely agreed that the president, especially with a bloodthirsty Congress behind him, can torture, kill and maim as much as he pleases so long as it’s outside the border.
But he's easily the most corrupt, also aided by the simplicity of his character.
It's been open a long time. Patriot Act/Snowden/Assange, JFK coverup, shutting churches to keep Walmart open, social media censorship, gerrymandering, immigration enforcement, etc
I agree though it's concerning that now it seems to be done without care to the visibility
The difference between people doing corruption before and Trump is that the other people had a "legit" lifestyle and worldview but did corruption as a side thing. An ignorant business person like Trump has corruption/intimidation/coercion/deception etc. as a lifestyle because someone like him can't live in the world that he is living in without this lifestyle.
Trump isn't really corrupt in the same sense as Obama because they are fundamentally different. You could even say more educated politicians that are able to understand what is going on are more evil.
People won't tolerate evil politicians anymore because they understand they are being robbed by the financial system and aren't getting their piece of the pie. It has to be a break to democracy (war?) or economic reform or Mamdani/Trump style government from now, it is really unthinkable people will keep electing Biden/Hilary/Harris/JD Vance kind of politicians anymore unless there is a big breakthrough in brainwashing
From what i hear politicians like Gavin Newsom from California are passing bills to prevent independent journalists like Nick Shirley from exposing fraud and corruption.
That signals that they (government officials) are extremely concerned with what the public thinks, but mainly in the sense that they don’t want the public to have the information that would put them in a thought spot.
On the other hand, the fact that fraud and corruption is only reported by some early-twenty-something independent youtuber/journalist should really tell you a lot on the state of mass media in the USA (in the sense that the mass media are essentially colluding with politicians).
(Downvote me if you want, I don’t care)
Then the money gets laundered through book sales. We're all supposed to pretend that money isn't affecting votes, but come on.