Can one still claim that the USA is a liberal democracy? Where do you draw the line?
Pretty sure it crossed that line decades ago.
Late 19th century. There was some pushback, some anti-trust laws with teeth, and then decades of bloody union battles to secure rights workers and their elected officials have thrown away for 50 years.
The concentration of wealth and influence of 10-16 people trumps that of hundreds of millions and is as bad or worse than it was during the robber baron era.
Political representatives are bought and paid for which means the poor have no voice against the wealthy.
We have a justice system that is incapable of prosecuting the wealthy and powerful, when it isn’t being stocked by ideologues.
Meritocracy is dead; Birth has much greater correlation to wealth and power.
Media is fully captured by the wealthy; they own the vast majority of media consumed: TV, film, news, social junk.
Nice country you got here.
Remember when unions thought they were so Irreplaceable and important. That they would withhold Support for a second term from a Democrat, they didn’t think did enough for them. One of the biggest miscalculations and blunders of the post World War II era. Because first they came for the unions and labor power.
I’d say around the beginning of the 1900s is when we truly lost the plot. While we, the workers, were given a few breadcrumbs over the years to appease us, the Owner class was strip mining the wealth at every level imaginable, there’s a reason people like Rockefeller and Carnegie were richer than heaven at this time in history.
I say this in nearly complete seriousness:
Always has been
🌎🧑🚀🔫🧑🚀
It has been an oligarchy for a long time. This has been studied and proven.
There was a study from Princeton showing that no major policy has aligned with public opinion since the civil rights era.
There is no measurable way that our government has reflected the will of the majority in over 50 years.
proven
Please explain. I don’t disagree with the conclusion, but this supporting statement doesn’t ring true to me.
By demonstrating the facts which make the system meet the definition. Look it up there’s plenty of articles citing studies. Someone else linked a major one here.
“Look it up” is never a good argument. With that said, I understand what you mean now; Thank you.
Well in 2015 Jimmy Carter said that the United States is "just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president. And the same thing applies to governors and U.S. senators and congress members. "
That same year The Economist’s Democracy Index downgraded the United States to a “flawed democracy” and it has continued to trend downwards since then.
If you’re looking for something more recent, Bernie Sanders is saying the same thing: “We are moving rapidly into an oligarchic form of society. Never before in American history have so few billionaires, so few people, have so much wealth and so much power”.
So between the massive (and growing) income inequality in the country, and rulings like Citizen’s United it’s hard not to believe it’s not at least on the trajectory towards an oligarchy. Now throw in the blatantly corrupt picks of the Trump administration, where cabinet positions are favors to rich friends, or being given to billionaires with a direct interest in killing the government agency they are running - not to mention all the things he’s routinely done / will do to enrich himself / friends with tax payer dollars and it certainly seems like an oligarchy to me.
And just on a personal vibes level, living here, it feels like legislation to help normal people or solve normal people’s problems is almost non-existent. And when it does happen, it also conveniently throws a ton of money at the rich at the same time (see recent tax cuts, pandemic relief funds, etc.). Even something like the Affordable Care Act, which did a ton of net good things for this country, enriched a whole lot of private healthcare companies along the way rather than creating an actual public option with negotiated prices to keep government costs down.
Turned? Have you ever heard of the Rockefeller and Morgan families?
