Even Republicans have to be shocked this shit is still working.
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They work for the same people. The mask is all the way off on the ‘paid to win’ and ‘paid to lose’ divide and conquer game we’re all falling for.
This is not a new model for oligarchs. “I don’t care who does the electing, as long as I get to do the nominating.” – Boss Tweed (This guy was the boss of the Tammany Hall political machine that ran NYC from 1858-1871)
It’s really fucking simple. There are a lot of people who benefit from the status quo as it is presently and they donate generously to both sides and spend billions more on lobbyists.
The big question is how far from systemic collapse we are. I think we’re fucked for keeping under 2.0C on climate change, and I think we’re just now hitting the tipping point. Things will get much worse very fast. They will try to pivot but the infrastructure they built to keep anything from changing will prevent them from turning the corner. Then the whole thing will break instead of bending like it did the last couple of times around.
We’ve just gotten done watching them show absolutely no aptitude for dealing with a real problem with COVID. They better hope the scientists bail them out in the next 12-18 months on climate change somehow. If not things are going to get really really turbulent.
Who is the “they” here? Most conservatives will be claiming global warming is fake even after half the country is actually on fire. The liberals will insist that the fact that half the country is on fire proves that we need to reach a consensus with Republicans on a workable deal. And round and round it goes.
No one is coming to save America from its collapse.
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They is upper class mostly white people in the United States all making macro decisions in their own interests. The big money donors who give to both sides and spend all the money on lobbyists (This is often their investments looking out for shareholder interests). It’s not a conspiracy it’s just a giant flock of birds flying in formation because that’s what’s best for them individually.
A lot of awful shit gets done in the interests of people who have the privilege of not having to know what is being done on their behalf. This is literally all of us. If you have any investments in anything someone somewhere is doing something awful to protect your interests.
I don’t see how we get out of this mess either. Like I said I think we’re fucked.
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I think I’m ready for the country to give up on elections and just randomly appoint people to congress for 2 year stints. Has to be better than what we have now.
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Maybe. Its also pretty clear that the hubris is off the charts in the class of people that own politicians. Their entire lived experience and view of how the world works is that they will be fine, no matter what happens to other people. The rich in America are more like monarchs than savvy power brokers. I dont think they have it in them to reason all this stuff out.
Jury duty for public office would probably dramatically out perform the performative game show we’ve got now.
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agreed. Jury Duty was the model I was thinking of.
ETA: bet the tax laws would change and be really easy to follow if you got a group of middle and lower class americans in there writing the laws.
Yeah they’re fucking morons. On that we’re totally agreed. We’re a dying empire with all the decadence, arrogance, and stupidity that goes with that. These people are soft third generation dipshits like Trump at this point.
They’re the generation of people who ruin a good thing by not maintaining it. This happens all the time historically. We’re a lot closer to the end than we think, which is also totally typical. We still think our military is powerful right now, but giving bales of money to military contractors is not how you build a powerful military.
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You would need enforces anti corruption laws though, which is lol America fuhgedabouddit.
By a long ways and obviously imo.
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I’m guessing the debt ceiling capitulation was to protect against the off chance that there was a Bernie presidency and like 56 dem seats in the senate
Too bad we used the nickname President deals on trump. It’s even funnier as a nickname for Biden.
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Shout out to the guy who held a TRAITOR sign behind Barrack for his perp walk.
Keep trying fellas. Surely a deal is right around the corner.
https://twitter.com/lindsemcpherson/status/1419756985155833856?s=21
Mercenaries can paper over the cracks for a while but they have a distressing tendancy to end up sacking the homeland when the money runs out. “The problem with paying people to start fighting is that unless you are very lucky you end up paying them a lot more to stop fighting.”
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Oh good. I’m sure Joe “my daughter jacked up the price of life saving Epipen for profit” Manchin will tell them to fuck off.