“But over time, the executive branch grew exceedingly powerful. Two world wars emphasized the president’s commander in chief role and removed constraints on its power. By the second half of the 20th century, the republic was routinely fighting wars without its legislative branch, Congress, declaring war, as the Constitution required. With Congress often paralyzed by political conflict, presidents increasingly governed by edicts.”
I’ve been hoping to hear some sort of glimmer of a thought from someone that when America does wrestle control back from the fascists, and history says you will, one way or another, that you don’t just rebuild the same system that produced Trump and his techno-fascist mates in the first place.
This interview was the first time I’ve actually heard it.
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Yep, we now basically have a one party system. Both sides are controlled by the 1%. We need a party that will get rid of the 1%, but that will never happen. They learned their lesson with FDR and watch for someone like him just to make sure he doesn’t get in to office.
I’m not gonna disagree with any of that, as I’m not super familiar with him. I’m just saying it’s the first time during this entire Trump fiasco I’ve heard anyone even suggest that maybe we shouldn’t just revert to the pre-Trump status quo should anything ever actually be done about stopping him. I’m hoping others are saying it, I just haven’t heard it.
What section does he mention it (if just one or two)? Don’t have the free time for listening to the full hour, unfortunately, but I am curious (if you don’t mind, of course).
I… I’m conflicted. Buttigieg talks a great game, I like much of what he has to say, but at the same time when he was in the 2020 primary I read an article that talked about how he had the most corporate/PAC support of any candidate and I wonder… does he actually believe what he’s saying, or is he just charismatic enough to pull off seeming like he does and he’s just like every other career politician? And also even if he’s 100% sincere and he wins the white house in 2028, he doesn’t have a free hand because the money required to win a national election comes with rather sturdy strings attached, so I don’t think he can accomplish what he claims to want.
But it is, I will admit, rather refreshing to find a Democrat who does in fact have some good-sounding ideas about how to make things better instead of just ‘vote for me or the world will literally blow up!11’
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Yeah, I just watched the ~hour long interview he did with Jon Stewart that someone posted, and like it was all good-sounding ideas that may do some good but don’t meaningfully challenge the status quo. Which is a pretty good summary of Democratic policy for the last 40 years. I’ll give it to him though, he’s definitely charismatic (I can’t help but like him even though I think he’s not very far left of, say, Hillary Clinton who is a full-on neoliberal) and he could probably win and be a damned sight better than the current administration. But also that’s maybe not the best long-term because we need the system to fail messily as it is right now to wake people up to the alternatives. I hate advocating for accelerationism because even if the harm caused in the short term is outweighed by the harm prevented long-term, I still have a hard time advocating for things that I know will definitely cause harm.
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Yeah, too many people in the US are still fat and comfortable with their lot in life, not even dreaming of what could be but stuck in the daily grind.
And I mean I made the same argument many times re:Israel - my standard for whether or not I can vote for someone has been reduced to a binary ‘supports the Israeli genocide in Palestine, yes/no’; it’s an extremely low bar, but both major candidates still managed to ooze under it somehow - but I did at least vote for not-fascism (for what good it did me living in a deep red state) which is more than I can say for most of those folks.
But yeah, we need something to wake people up, and my estimation of what that will take grows increasingly dire as the country goes to shit around us and still people are like ‘No this is fine, we can fix this by voting!’ Nah, the days of voting fixing a damned thing have been over for 20 years at least. And yeah, while the outcome will be the same, one of those is unfortunately going to hurt a lot more than the other, so I’m still reluctant…
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Yeah. It’s sad to finally give up the last shred of hope that maybe this will all sort itself and somehow get back on track, but the track is now a smoking crater and there’s nowhere to even build new track 'til we fill that back in.
The US has been doing this for the entirety of my life at the very least, and I’m in my 50s. They did it with the USSR, Cuba, China, Vietnam, North Korea, Venezuela, etc (not saying all of those places had great quality of life tho.) That was the whole thing with Domino Theory and containment - not just containing the spread, but containing the ideas behind propaganda and sanctions so thick that Americans couldn’t even access the truth of the matter, that way they wouldn’t get any bright ideas about eating the rich and nationalizing industries over here.
It’s definitely exhausting.
IDK why people are so hopeful of fascism falling within their lifetime?
The fascists in power now have technology in everybody’s pockets, even your light bulbs for crying out loud
They can track you within feet across the country. And a lot of this stuff, you can’t really avoid. You can’t really go off the grid if you want to have a normal job now
Not only that, look at China. China is still here and has been for quite some time…